Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
-
Upload
mark-bergfeld -
Category
Documents
-
view
217 -
download
0
Transcript of Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
1/14
The role of anarchists inOccupy
Mark BergfeldQueen Mary University of London School of
Business and Managementmdbergfeld[at]gmail.com
www.mdbergfeld.com
MeCCSA Social Movements Network Conference Generations of Protest - Marxism Matters?
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
2/14
Occupy as an arena of class struggle
Barkers notion of social movement as a mediationof class struggle (Barker, 2011; Barker 2013)
Different actors contend with one another, seek to
influence the direction and make sense of strategy Epitomised by struggle within Occupy: conduit for
Obamas re -election(?), left-wing Tea Party (?),revolutionary party in the making (Dean, 2012)
Movements thus always heterogenous networks,always in flux and ever-changing
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
3/14
Idea(l)s in practice but theory also becomes a material force as soon as it has gripped the masses.Theory is capable of gripping the masses as soon as it demonstrates ad hominem,and it demonstrates ad hominem as soon as it becomes radical. (Marx, 1844)
Ideas can either further or inhibit the development of asocial movement (i.e. unity of cause between environment andlabour - Teamsters & Turtles in Seattle 1999) Different actors (nodes in the network) hold different ideas
which they seek to test against reality (Occupy Oakland
General Strike) Ideas cross-fertilise in the course of a movement (Occupy as
an American idea, Graeber, 2011, Graeber, 2012)
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
4/14
From my own experience
Participated in COP-15 mobilisations, UK studentmovement, solidarity demos outside Spanish embassy,and Occupy LSX
Encountered a common sense anti-authoritarianism or
anarchism actvists favoured informal politics as opposed to formal
politics Notions of leaderlessness, decentralised and
horizontalism dominant inside movement and activistcircles The reasons why people became activists and what they
expected from being an activist had changed
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
5/14
One, two, many anarchisms
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
By 2001 [] a new, open -ended pragmaticanarchism was emerging as the spiritual centre of therevolutionary left" (Graeber, 2012: 425)
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
6/14
Who are the anarchists?
Difference between small- a anarchists and capital -AAnarchists ( Graeber, 2002)
anarchists draw upon the student revolts of 1960s,spontaneist groups of the 1970s, and the German
Autonomen Draw heavily on the uprising of the inidigneous peoples
of Chiapas Mexico, their democratic practices and theuprising of the EZLN
Most importantly have imported movement -practicesfrom the Global South, and in particular, Latin America(Sitrin & Azzellini, 2012)
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
7/14
What did they do this time?
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
Photo from Toronto G20 demonstration
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
8/14
Did we only end up with this?
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
Source: http://digitalpolitico.net/2011/11/02/i-hate-to-copy-guido-fawkes-but/
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
9/14
Or this?
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
10/14
What role they played Provide their infrastructure (i.e. soup kitchens) to Occupy as a whole
(Bray, 2013; Khatib et al 2012) Use previous movement-knowledge to advance movement (rf to
Seattle, 1999; PGA; WSF)
Create a culture of encounter and horizontalism which allowedpeople to participate who experience a life without democracy (rf.Sitrin & Azzellini, 2012)
Provide an ethico-political framework for the movement throughprefigurative politics
Created movement-practices and forms of communication whichdiffuse (Della Porta, 2005) and anti-systemic (Wallerstein & Arrighi,1997) in form (rather than content); Graeber calls thiscontaminationism
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
11/14
The function of the anarchist
Difference between role and function important theoretically adopted vanguard function ( Nunes, 2013) similar to Gustav
Landauer as elaborated by (Swain, 2013). This can be taken up by anumber of actors in social movements. Characterised by thosetaking initiatives ( rf. Bray, 2013; Graeber, 2012)
As the vanishing mediator (Dean, 2012) they allowed people toenter the movement until their ideas clashed with the scale, size ofmovement and was not able to provide further impetus
Popularisers of anti-capitalism and class politics
Leaders (Fox Piven, 2012) - can rest in collective groups as well asindividuals; can be formalised or informal; manifests itself in newways; Leaderfull (Occupy Research Collective 2012); "There areno leaders (or, more radically, everyone is a leader)." (Williams, 19)
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
12/14
The turn in anarchism
"Anarcho-popu l i sm is the dominant ideology in contemporary protestmovements. It is a form of mass anarchism, or of libertarian populism,in which political traditions apparently at odds with one another cometogether in contradictory ways. This development can be understood asa consequence of the current situation of economic and political crisis,in which traditional anarchist and anti-statist themes are capable ofresonating with sectors of the population well beyond its traditionalheartlands. At the time of the NSA scandal and of the politics ofausterity, being against the State is no longer an identitarian declarationthat only befits the mouths of dishevelled drop-outs hanging out in
squats and communes, but it is a persuasion that wide sectors of thepopulation can at the very least relate to. ( Gerbaudo, 2013)
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
13/14
Conclusion
Culture of encounter creates initial opportunities (newactivist culture) but also a strategic impasse formovements (demandlessness, rolling jubilee etc)
There is a valuable shift: no insistence on ideological
purity. Instead translated anarchy (Bray, 2013) orbecome pragmatic anarchists (Harvey in Khatib et al,2012) work with faith groups, political parties, tradeunions. Already saw that during COP-15 and discussionson diagonalism (Mueller, 2010)
Problem with popular agency (due to the role-functionproblem) needs to be resolved - in theory but also inpractice as Occupy Oakland showed with the GeneralStrike on November 2, 2011
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
-
8/13/2019 Mark Bergfeld, MeCCSA Presentation: The role of "anarchists" in Occupy, 20 Nov 2013
14/14
The End
For full bibliography please e-mailmdbergfeld[at]gmail.com
For review essay on Graebers The Democracy Project and Khatib et al.s We Are Many check ContentionJournal http://bit.ly/1eyRgav
For other writings please visit www.mdbergfeld.com
MeCCSA Social Movements Network
Conference Generations of Protest -
Marxism Matters?
http://bit.ly/1eyRgavhttp://www.mdbergfeld.com/http://www.mdbergfeld.com/http://bit.ly/1eyRgav