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Publisher’s note: This article was extracted from Heathwood Journal of Critical Theory (Vol. 1, Issue 2). Gordon Asher, Penny Cole, Christian Fuchs, Richard Gunn, R.C. Smith Introduction The following round table discussion between several notable activists, thinkers, and academics is intended to inspire interaction and discussion. It takes place as part of Heathwood’s ongoing research … 
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Social scientists have a
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Use of the internet has not led to a predominance of virtual actions and movements over mobilizations in ‘physical space’. On the contrary, since 2011 the occupation of urban public spaces - and more particularly symbolic spaces - has been a major feature of these movements.
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It is an old question in social movements: Should we fight the system or “be the change we wish to see”? Should we push for transformation within existing institutions, or should we model in our own lives a different set of political relationships that might someday form the basis of a new society?
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Since 2011, from the Arab Spring and Spanish Revolution to Occupy, waves of global uprisings have been erupting as never before. The crisis of representation helped spawn decentralized movements as a manifestation of people’s aspiration to take the reins of their own destinies. For many, the presumption of legitimacy of their governments has been crumbling. What triggered this widespread global crisis?
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An estimated 50,000 people in London addressed by speakers, including Russell Brand, after People's Assembly march
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Interface: a journal for and about social movements is a forum bringing together activists from different movements and different countries, researchers working with movements, and engaged academics from different disciplines to contribute to the production of knowledge that can help us gain insights across movements and issues, across continents and cultures, and across political and disciplinary traditions: learning from each other’s struggles.
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Young people under 30 are the majority in many countries in the Middle East and South America, yet politicians do little or nothing for them. Is the demographics of the 'youth bulge' enough to explain the huge rise in disaffection?
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Naomi Klein explains in her book, “The Shock Doctrine”, how neo-liberalism, unable to convince people by means of argument (since these neo-liberal measures are essentially anti-people), has only been able to impose itself via coups d’etat, declarations of war, situations of catastrophic natural disaster, or other traumatic phenomena, leaving the public in the grip of anxiety and fear.
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A comparative study of the press coverage of the Indignados and Aganaktismenoi in the Spanish and Greek press illustrates a favourable coverage of the movement.
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The notion of a popular front has drawn so much suspicion in the past that its usage has almost been dropped completely from our political vocabulary. The historic example of The Workers’ Movement raised the materialised spectre of collaboration, compromise and the dilution of more heterogeneous radical intents through an adoption of the formalities of state politics. Did these endeavours to form popular fronts, an effort to massify, become one with the notion of a ‘historical compromise’? Whilst in Italy in the 1970s this phrase marked the willed vicinity of the Italian Communist Party to state power, could it not be said, reading this history backwards, that some form of ‘historical compromise’ came to mark the Workers’ Movement in general? A history of compromise with power as it was already instituted and hence a compromise with the forces of capital? At the parliamentary origins of the British Labour Party there was the Lib-Lab pact that got Kier Hardie elected as an MP; at the origins of the Communist Party of Great Britain there was a streamlining of the movement via the adoption of the Bolshevik Central Committee’s 21 points which enabled its legitimating membership of the Comintern.1
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In his vast body of social scientific work, Charles Tilly made two fundamental contributions to our understanding of the development of modern states and social movements. In the first body of work, Tilly argued that war and preparations for war were the origin of the modern state. In the second, he polemicized against social movement scholarship for focusing narrowly on Northern reformist movements, ignoring more violent forms of what he called contentious politics. But Tilly made little attempt to bring together his “top-down” approach to war and state-building with his “bottom-up” research on contentious politics. With the growth of non-state violent movements in the twenty-first century, especially in the global South, this is a lacuna that we must work to close.
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Mostly, the work of social change is a slow process. It involves patiently building movement institutions, cultivating leadership, organizing campaigns and leveraging power to secure small gains. If you want to see your efforts produce results, it helps to have a long-term commitment.
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In our new book We Make Our Own History: Marxism and Social Movements in the Twilight of Neoliberalism we condense four decades of research and activism into an argument about how ordinary people can understand the nature of the world we live in and find ways to push beyond the neoliberal orthodoxy of the last few decades.
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Not long ago, same-sex marriage in America was not merely an unpopular cause; it was a politically fatal one — a third-rail issue that could end the career of any politician foolish enough to touch it. The idea that gay and lesbian couples would be able to legally exchange vows in states throughout the United States was regarded, at best, as a far-off fantasy and, at worst, as a danger to the republic.
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Whatever happened to the 15-M Movement? Where did Occupy go? Three years after the groundbreaking revolutionary ruptures of 2011, violent repression and media invisibility have relegated these thriving movements to a grey area. The perception seems to shift between mainstream derision and niche-group interest. Occupy’s roots have spread out and sprouted a multitude of initiatives, though perhaps the source inspiration is not always publicly recognized. But in Spain, the popular experience of austerity – the murderous palliative prescribed as a cure for the crisis – and the resulting political movements in reaction have been giving the lie to the mainstream narrative that 15-M is a “has been”.
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This is the fourth and final post in our series on The Abduction of Europe meeting that we attended in Madrid a couple of weeks ago. In the first three posts we addressed some of the more general themes and questions raised by the organizers and in the workshops on Europe, financialization and the commons. Here we describe some of the experiences of right to housing and healthcare struggles in Spain and Germany. We had heard about some of these movements before but it was inspiring and edifying to talk to the people involved about their experiences of organizing within and against the crisis. These movements did not begin with pre-existing programs for society. They began by intervening in concrete situations where people were being excluded from housing or healthcare.
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Exactly a year ago United Nation's Assistant Secretary-General Robert C. Orr declared, "We will innovate, then we will renovate." At Social Innovation Summit 2014, renovation indeed was in full swing. There was a tinge of nostalgia letting go of General Assembly Hall giving life to a metaphor as the UN rebuilds itself, so too, the financial landscape is under reconstruction as referred to from "the great disruption" toward "the great distribution."
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Ed.Note: A frequent question to the team of the Occupy Solidarity Network is, “Why are you still here? Isn’t Occupy over?” The response is that we carry a moral responsibility
Monica S Mcfeeters's curator insight,
February 22, 2014 10:01 AM
This is a great article about how to move important challenges to the status quo forward and introduce new ideas that need to be heard and perhaps implemented. Here is look behind the what is in the thoughts of those most serious about shaping and being part of changes that really need to happen.
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"We were very pleased to promote the response to the State of the Union from Kshama Sawant on Tuesday evening. One of the most important values of the Occupy Solidarity
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When the Arab Spring erupted in 2010, one of the first things people noticed was the very visible role social media seemed to play. Many began to call the series of political uprisings “Twitter Revolutions” and a lively debate broke out about the importance of the new technology.
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