Peopling the Globe: New Social Movements INTRODUCTION: PEOPLING THE GLOBE In order to understand what power relations are about, perhaps we should investigate the forms of resistance. (Foucault, 1982: 780) The global wave of new social movements visible since Seattle 2000 has been prefigured by the anti-IMF (Intemational Monetary Fund) riots of developing countries in the south, Most of all, with the Zapatista uprising in 1994 we have witnessed the emergence of people’s movements all over the world eriti- cizing the abuses of the global free market. Seattle, Prague, Quebec City, Genoa, Evian, Thessaloniki, Miami and Cancun are places we now associate with the so-called ‘anti- globalization’ protests. The ‘Seattle’ protests temporarily shut down the World Trade Organization (WTO) and had a domino effect especially in North America and in Europe. Towards the end of 2000, Prague was the focus of a pan-European mobilization against another IMF/World Bank meeting, Se Soest Ch Paint 29 Irina Velicu Mobilizations also happened in Milau, Okinawa, Melbourne and Seoul. In 2001, one of the main events occurred in Quebec City where some 80,000 people protested vigor- ously against the proposed Free Trade Area. ‘Also, the protests in Genoa in 2001 against G8 ended with the death of Carlo, a 23-year- old Italian activist, poet and anarchist. The current Occupy movements indict the damag- ing effects of austerity policies in the context of the global economic crisis. “Indignados’ all over Europe remind decision makers about the growing necessity to rewrite the princi- ples of global (economic) policies. These are only a few examples that inspired the title of this chapter: more and more people around the world are reinhabiting public spaces, “peopling” the globe despite increasing police brutality against them, and asking to be treated as citizens and not mere pawns in business games These mobilizations known as the ‘anti- globalization movement(s)’are highly complex and thus, difficult to research (Martes et al, 2004; Starr, 2000). They are also referred to630 THE SAGE HANDBOOK OF GLOBALIZATION as ‘altemative globalization’, global justic movements, critical globalization move ments, or anti-corporate globalization. The label ‘anti-globalization’ is problematic ‘because many of the protesters/participants in these movements specify that their critique is not directed against globalization per se ‘but against the damaging effects of corporate monopolies and neo-liberal financial policies of globalization that work in favor of a small elite in developed countries (Kingsnorth, 2004). The new movements are part of the ‘broader “global civil society’ or the ‘new public sphere" which ‘constitute a third type of civil society actor’ alongside local civil society, NGOs (non-governmental orga tions) and movements of public opinion (Castells, 2010: 266). Since there are prob- lems which affect all people of the world irrespective of country or tertitory in which they live, civil society has had to develop a transnational dimension in order to address these transnational challenges: disparities and scarcity of resources, destitution and displacement, global environmental degrada- tion, world poverty and the Third World deb, crimes against humanity etc Global movements (and global civil s ety) may be seen as the ‘activist’ version of the civil society, a more radical form of ci zenship that stresses the importance of increased participation, self-organization and redistribution of power (Kaldor, 2003). These movements have emerged as a counterbal- ance to another layer of governance in our globalized era, that is, the layer of supra-state governance. Globalization is, thus, an impor- tant factor in the emergence of the new movements both in the north and the south; this is visible in the fact that many of their actions are targeted at non-state global actors such as transnational corporations and finan- cial institutions. For a better understanding of these movements one has to first observe how democratic decision making is rendered much more complicated by the processes of globalization (Scholte, 2000). Therefore, scholars ask about the possibility “to recon- cile the principle of the rule by the people SS Che Paint 690 with a world in which power is exercised increasingly on a transnational (...) seale’ (Held and McGrew, 2000: 405). As one pos- sible answer to this crucial question of our times, the “global civil society” has been seen as the only possible realm where the victims of globalization can make their voice heard (Cox, 1999). People movements may be seen as attempts at ‘civilizing’ or democratizing globalization, demanding a global rule of law, global justice and global empowerment (Kaldor, 2003). “Globalization from below” or ‘the Lilliput strategy” refers to a human agenda of multifarious efforts of people all over the world to counteract the corporate agenda: global networks for ordinary people everywhere become involved within move- ments such as ‘Workers for Workers’ or “Mujera Mujer’ (Brecher and Costello, 1998 Falk, 1995; Smith et al., 1997) Inthis chapter we attempt to draw some of the most important features of these contem porary movements. How are they ‘new’ social movements? What is their current extent? Has the nature of global civie a ism changed over the last decade? Do mem- bers of global activist networks or “movements” see themselves as global zens? First, the chapter will problematize the “old versus new social’ movement theories to frame the theoretical debate over the emer- «gence of the new social movements. Second, by pinpointing globalization as the newness of contemporary movements, the chapter will examine the anti-capitalist feelings that, are being globalized through these mobiliza- tions. Perhaps one of the most important novelties of the current movements is pre- cisely the denunciation of capitalism itself as, a global system causing much damage to a majority of people and to the earth. But what does it mean to be anti-capitalist in a world that, after 1989, proclaimed the triumph of capitalism? ‘The chapter will bring to the forefront the growing global civic consciousness and interconnectedness resulting from intensified mobilizations around the globe: we argue that the intemal discursive ambiguity of thePEOPLING THE GLOBE: NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS 631 new movements (in terms of practices, lan- guages, ideologies) mirrors that of late capi talism as the structural historical framework which produces them. Movements are both a product and an agent of power: from indi- vidual everyday practices, to collective actions and more formalized social organiza- tions, they challenge dominant codes, de- individualizing, that is, diffusing the power people have, as citizens of the globe. THE (OLD) NEW SOCIAL MOVEMENTS Old social movements, such as traditional labor movements, were seen as practicing emancipatory polities within the existing political system speaking mainly to or against the state, By contrast, new social movements, such as indigenous or environmental, are reaching beyond state borders, practicing identity polities and secking to change the political system (Cohen and Rai, 2000). For the old movements, economic redistribution among classes in the industrial context pro- duced the primary justification of mass mobi- lization among the working class (Eyerman, 1984; Olofsson, 1988). Nowadays however, the coherence of the working class as a main site of counter-hegemony has been decreased; (capital) hegemony is no longer bom in the factory (Gramsci, 1971). In addition, the 1960s were famous for student anti-war pro- tests that challenged Marxist theories espe- cially in Europe (Touraine, 1981). To understand new social movements we have to, first, point out to the major shifts in the global economy. The post-industrialist or post-Fordist transformations of our era have meant a decline in the old manufactur- ing base of skilled, male manual working class, the rise of services-white-collar classes, the feminization of the work force and an increasingly decentralized and flex- ible labor organization, the development of new Information Technology, and the domi- nance of multinationals (Harvey, 1990). In terms of cultural patterns, post-Fordism brings more pluralism and fragmentation, Seep Chaba ed weaker collective identities and solidarities associated with greater choice through con- sumption, mobility of labor and new geog- raphies of employment (relocation of production in ‘cheaper’ developing nations). In other words, these are the new opportuni- ties and the new forms of ‘enslavement’ by ‘which capital impacts labor (Amin, 1994) as well as personal lifestyles (Klein, 2004) Therefore, the new social movements (NSMSs) associated with these transforma- tions have been viewed as Western forms of social struggle aiming at the non-material, cultural and identity-issues. They are sup- posed to be less preoccupied with the distri- bution of resources or with capturing power and more interested in the quality of life, expression of alternative life-styles and rights (Buechler, 1995; Inglehart, 1990). Touraine argues that the struggle over culture is one of the main characteristics of the new social movements. The stakes now are considered to be higher than material goals, including the fundamental relations of the contempo- rary societal type. The “totality” (or the ideol- ogy) of a social movement is inextricably linked with its self-conceived identity, and its identification of its opponents (Touraine, 1981). Referring to ‘complex society” (indi- cating structuration) and the information society’ (indicating the core resource) Melucci similarly suggests that new forms of inequality arise from the increased potential for the individual to choose self-identity Higher levels of education and the extension of citizenship enhance this potential (Melucci: 1996). The primary activity of new social movements is, therefore, to challenge dominant cultural codes rather than to strug~ gle over material resources. It may be the case that ‘what is new about NSMs jis the fact that their impact is not merely political but also, cultural and social, a re-appropriation of society from the state’ (Evers, 1985). They are not just addressing some antagonisms but, most of all, they are re-politicizing more aspects of social life and relations (Mouffe, 1984), Therefore, NSMs highlight the limits of