Networking Futures: The movements against corporate globalization

Academic and activist interest in movements against corporate globalization was boosted by vivid media images of protest and resistance at Seattle, Barcelona and Genoa. Most of the subsequent literature has focused on the visible stages of resistance covered by the media. Spotting a gap, Juris asks how the Barcelona-based anti-corporate Movement for Global Resistance (MRG) operated during its ‘submerged and invisible’ stages (p. 5); how during these periods the Catalan-based movement constructed global networks with like-minded movements; and how networking in the invisible phase prepared movements for the visible phases that were so graphically captured by the media. Juris addresses these by examining the ‘concrete practices’ through which anti-corporate globalisation networks are constituted. However, the book does not stop at a descriptive account of the organisational and technological operation of the network. Juris also presents it as a ‘widespread cultural ideal’, a model of and for new forms of radical, directly democratic politics. Thus, he not only attempts to fill a gap in the literature but also to provide practitioners with knowledge to sustain networks and tools to analyse their own practices and reflect on them critically.

Juris attempts to do this, first, through a study of networks that links structure and practice to larger social, economic and technological dimensions. Underpinning the concrete practices of the network and MRG in particular is a commitment to an anarchist or libertarian ideology that informs opposition to corporate globalization and the structure of the movement. Juris argues it is manifest in a ‘cultural logic of networking’, an ‘increasing confluence among network technologies, organizational forms and political norms, mediated by concrete activist practice’ (p. 288). It is at these interfaces that members seek to translate the ideal dimensions of anarchist thinking into practice in ongoing interactions.

Second, Juris uses a case study of MRG to explore theory and the praxis. The Barcelona-based movement was formed to mobilise Catalan activists against the World Bank and IMF meetings in Prague; was active in the Barcelona and Genoa protests; then ‘self-dissolved’ in 2003 when activists felt the structures had become hierarchical and rigid. Members were anti-corporate globalisation but not anti-capitalism or anti-globalisation per se. So, they actively embraced the global networking potential of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) as offering a technological infrastructure that complemented anarchic principles of horizontal organisation and collaboration. However, they opposed specific political, economic and social programmes and discourses that deny alternatives and legitimise neo-liberalism without considering the adverse consequences of these policies on disadvantaged communities. This radical ideology and praxis of the movement was informed by activists’ recognition that the media attention during the Seattle protests could give their cause a visibility as well as Catalonia’s ‘unique culture of opposition … [and] political and historical context … of anarchism, nationalism and assembly-based struggles’ (p. 92). Adoption of ICTs, Juris argues, has ‘reworked and reinforced traditional modes of popular mobilization involving grassroots organization, open participation and decentralized co-ordination’ (ibid). Thus, the cultural and political specificities of ‘concrete places’ are still significant within transnational networks.

Third, Juris uses ‘militant ethnography’, an alternative to traditional methods in which the observer remains distant and detached. The latter, he argues, fail to grasp the ‘concrete logic of activist practice’ resulting in inadequate explanations and theoretical models of little practical use to activists. Instead, militant ethnography involves the researcher engaging in and organising ‘strategic and tactical debates and putting one’s body on the line during direct actions’ (p.19). Thus, the researcher’s own feelings and actions become part of the data generated.

By the end of the book, MRG has ‘self-dissolved’. Its life-cycle mirrors a wider ‘cycle of protest’ that started in Seattle but ‘began to lose steam’ after 2002. Juris suggests three main reasons for this: a strategic shift away from mass mobilisations to less visible forms of organising; the difficulty of sustaining the feelings of solidarity associated with mass actions; and a shift in activist attention away from corporate globalisation to the ‘war on terror’ post 9/11.

In terms of theory, the book is robust, although at times the discussion on the role of technological infrastructure is treated less problematically than some of the literature on new media might suggest. However, its main contribution is its rich data. Juris gives a rare and fascinating insight of a movement from the inside; but his position as an activist and a researcher will be controversial and problematic in the academy. On the one hand, it offers an alternative to the moral superiority and detachment of the distant observer. On the other hand, the ‘militant’ dimensions of the ethnography will raise major problems with the ethics of research and the value judgements Juris treats as unproblematic. So, for instance, is the method acceptable when it involves studying anti-globalisation movements but unacceptable when studying fascist or terror movements? Who is to make that judgement? On the one hand, ‘taking sides’ in activist strategising and planning gives access to an inner circle and insight into their thinking. On the other hand, it risks giving researchers access to some groups, but excludes them from others, thereby limiting the comprehensiveness of the account. Juris does not adequately address these problems. Nevertheless, these reservations should not detract from what is still a valuable contribution. The approach does deliver interesting and rare insights into the thinking and feelings of activists, and it enables him to produce a rich account of the history of a movement during a critical period in the development of activist movements. However, its contribution to the academic study remains problematic. Its contribution to practitioners is also unclear. Juris aims to provide knowledge needed to sustain networks yet it is unclear how the knowledge gleaned from direct action can inform the new emphasis on local organisation. He sets out to offer practitioners methodological tools to analyse their own practices and reflect on them critically. The next edition of the book would do well to include a short appendix for practitioners on how to write and analyse fieldnotes.