Power and autonomy: against and beyond the state
It is the evening of 21 December 2001. Hundreds of thousands of people are in the streets of Buenos Aires, watching the president and Minister of the Economy take off in a helicopter. They have resigned. Dozens of government officials and members of the judiciary have resigned. If they appear anywhere in public they are followed and harassed. Despite the state of siege, the people dominate the streets. They are singing and greeting one another. They are helping each other escape police repression. Cafés and restaurants open their doors to everyone in the street. Food, water and refuge are provided. Many thousands of people are in the square in front of the Pink House, the same square where the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo have been walking twice a week since the dictatorship of the 1970s, bravely demanding the appearance of their children. These protestors, now both young and old, are survivors of the dictatorship and children of the dictatorship, they are all in the same square. All children of the same history. They are proudly and bravely demonstrating. In a flash, seemingly out of nowhere, police move in on a few hundred protesters, those closest to the Pink House … the protesters run. They jump over the fence to the Pink House and get close to the doors. There is no one blocking the doors. The president has fled. Who is the government? What is the government? Should they go in? Should they take over? Is that where power is? …
They stop.
They turn around.
They go to back to the neighborhoods, look to one another and begin …
This chapter examines what movement participants mean whey they say that they are rejecting power, creating alternative power, and doing so autonomously. It will discuss the definitional and sociological meanings of these terms, and then distinguish and expand upon these definitions. It also begins to engage with social scientists who critique the movements largely because of their different analysis of and strategy towards power.
Photo 5 Woman worker from FaSinPat (Factory Without a Boss)
Power
Power was no longer located in the Pink House, nor in the state. Power was (and is) being created in and among the people within the new autonomous social movements. Power – the sort of power that they desire and the power they are creating – is not located in or embodied by the state or formal institutions of power. What they are creating and theorizing are new and different forms of power. It is a living and changing power, it is power as potential and capacity. Some people have come to call it potencia, distinguishing the relational and active interpretation of the word. Others simply put it that power is a verb and not a noun. The state holds power as a ‘thing’, something to wield over others, when really power is or can be a verb: something that one creates, uses, and shares. However, there are others who say that they want to destroy power – all forms of it. Within their definition, power is seen only as something that is used against or over others. Over the past ten years, many in the movements in Argentina who first argued for the destruction of all power have arrived at a more nuanced interpretation of it (as a verb), seeing it as something positive if used in a horizontal way.
‘Power over’ is a form of power that has been the most widely discussed both historically and within the social sciences. It is the power held by a subject or institution, over another subject or institution. Steven Lukes defines three dimensions of power in Power: A Radical View:
A may exercise power over B by getting him to do what he does not want to do, but he also exercises power over him by influencing, shaping or determining his very wants. Indeed, is it not the supreme exercise of power to get another or others to have the desires you want them to have – that is, to secure their compliance by controlling their thoughts and desires?
(Lukes 1974: 23)
Here, Lukes alludes to Robert Dahl in the way that he defined power: as A having power over B to the extent that he can get B to do something that otherwise B would not do. This understanding of power is seen as a product of conflict used to determine who wins and who loses, and is based on who has the power to make decisions, including who has the potential to access decision making positions. This question of access is placed by Lukes in his category of the second dimension of power, but remains within an overarching vision of power as a ‘thing’, something that one can wield over another. The third dimension is similar to the second, however within this dimension power can withhold the other’s ability to speak, in a sense making them unaware of the potential of their own voice. These three intricate dimensions carry different intentions; nonetheless, ultimately within these conceptions there is always someone who gains and someone who loses.
There are countless theories of power but for the purpose of this chapter, placing arguments and articulations on power in slightly more generalized categories is useful for an understanding of the ways in which it is used or created by the movements. For a common definition of this widely articulated view on power we can turn to Max Weber: ‘By power is meant that opportunity existing within a social relationship which permits one to carry out one’s own will even against resistance and regardless of the basis on which this opportunity rests’ (Weber 1990[1962]: 117).
Frances Fox Piven also uses this definition as a starting point for a conversation on alternative forms of power, as she explained in the 2007 president’s speech to the American Sociological Association. The talk, entitled ‘Can Power from Below Change the World?’ addressed many of the very same issues as this chapter: the new forms of power and power relationships being created and acted upon in countless places around the globe. In her address, published in the 2008 issue of the American Sociological Review, she asks, ‘The potential for the exercise of power from below must, I believe, command the attention of sociologists. But are our intellectual traditions and institutional locations suited to conduct such inquiries?’ (2008: 3).
In response to this question I would argue ‘yes’, but a ‘yes’ contingent on our listening to what is taking place within these autonomous communities. This chapter will outline what these new movements and communities are conceptualizing and acting upon, how they are implementing power from below, and how the creation of new social relationships (new autonomous ways of creating, living, and being), is a part of this new power. In addition, it will challenge various social scientists who have arrived at conclusions without enquiries into forms of power from below.
There are a few social scientists and movement thinkers who have been developing concepts of power to explain these new ways of being. One of the most well known and contentious is John Holloway, author of Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today (2002). The widespread international popularity of this book cannot be overstated: many global justice groups, from Europe to South Africa and throughout Latin America, have discussed it. Holloway has been invited to speak at demonstrations, gatherings, universities, and in debates all over the globe, from Chiapas and Buenos Aires to Rostock and Tokyo. His book addresses many similarities of the issues and points that participants within the movements have been thinking about and/or doing. His book has helped to give voice to these actions. This does not mean that movement participants have begun speaking in the language of ‘anti-power’, or specifically about breaking the ‘social flow of doing’, but clear articulation of the proposition of power as potential has been pivotal to the developing discussion:
Power-to, therefore, is never individual: it is always social. It cannot be thought of as existing in some pure, unsullied state, for its existence will always be part of the way in which sociality is constituted, the way in which doing is organised. Doing (and power-to-do) is always part of a social flow, but that flow is constituted in different ways. Power-over is the breaking of the social flow of doing. Those who exert power over the doing of others deny the subjectivity of those others, deny their part in the flow of doing, exclude them from history. Power-over breaks mutual recognition … History becomes the history of the powerful, of those who tell others what to do.
(Holloway 2002: 15)
Fox Piven, like Holloway, offers another definition of power that is also based in social relations rather than force:
I propose that there is another kind of power based not on resources, things, or attributes, but rooted in the social and cooperative relations in which people are enmeshed by virtue of group life … This kind of interdependent power is not concentrated at the top but is potentially widespread.
(Fox Piven 2008: 5)
Argentina: power as verb
Distinct from the Zapatistas in Chiapas, where alternative power and autonomy are created in one specific geographical location, in Argentina the creation of alternative power is happening in pockets throughout the entire country. Neka from MTD Solano explains their concept of power as emerging from their reality:
The issue isn’t just physical confrontation with the system. Everyday we’re forced to confront a system that is completely repressive. The system tries to impose on us how and when we struggle; the question for us is how to think outside this framework. How to manage our own time and space. It’s easier for them to overthrow us when we buy into concepts of power, based on looking at the most powerful, based on something like weapons or the need to arm the people. We’re going to build according to our own reality, and not let them invade it. I think this idea of power as a capability and a potential, not a control, is a very radical change from previous struggles.
(Conversation in Solano, 2004)
This is seen with the movement creating various means for self-sufficiency, from participants building their own homes on occupied land to growing their own crops, raising livestock, and creating alternative medicine, healthcare and education – and not only creating these things together, but doing so through relationships based in horizontalidad and politica afectiva.
When discussing the unemployed workers’ movement of Solano, Raul Zibechi distinguishes two forms of power: hierarchical power, and power as capacity, arguing that the movements have been breaking with the former and are now creating autonomous power. He argues against the idea of ‘empowerment’ as a way of describing what the movements are doing; instead, seeing it as a break with former pre-established ways of relat-ing, and ‘jumping’ ahead with the 19th and 20th, viewing that moment as a ‘before’ and an ‘after’, with the autonomous nonhierarchical creation as the ‘after’:
And people continue despite the state giving out resources or trying to get in the middle of the new projects. The sociologists call this power ‘empowerment’. This is a word I do not like. It is this capacity to do things from below that broke free from all the pre-established organizations, and leapt into the public arena on the 19th and 20th.
Nicolas, a young photographer who became involved in the movements after the 19 and 20th, explained:
Power used to be talked about as an enemy – power, like that of the state. But they didn’t consent to this attribution. Power is seen more as a daily practice. For example, in each neighborhood there is a very bureaucratic health center that until now has been where milk is given out. But the milk never arrives, or no one knows how much milk is coming, or it is bad when the people get it. So the assemblies – I’m talking about my neighborhood assembly, which has the Córdoba and Anchorena Health Center – they observed that the health center wasn’t functioning, or only worked for the people who worked there who didn’t do anything, and that took away people’s motivation to go to the health center. So they began to take over the health center peacefully, to begin to control it over time, to put pressure on the doctors there and on the managers to do their jobs – and they spoke of power in that way, the power of the neighborhood. Not of taking government power, or fighting from one side, but a daily power.
(Conversation in Downtown Buenos Aires, 2003)
Power and the state
Soon after 19 and 20 December 2001 the Colectivo Situaciones, a militant research and writing group in Buenos Aires, edited a book entitled ContraPoder: Una Introdución (CounterPower: An Introduction, 2001). It is a compilation of writings from a number of scholars who are involved in the autonomous social movement in Latin America and Europe. The book addresses power, what it is, and how different forms of power can be used to create freer societies. It is a book that includes tactical and theoretical arguments, many of which address specifically the question of state power.
The question of power is integral to the movements and to those thinking about change. Here, I would like to point out the theoretical importance of what the movements are creating in practice: as they broke with hierarchical forms of power and began creating power with one another, autonomously, they began to discuss the practical and more theoretical aspects of what they were creating. These discussions were, and continue to be, grounded in what the movements and communities are doing, as opposed to an abstract conceptualization of relationships to the largest power-holder in each situation: the state. This break from seeing the state as the agent of change, or even as a place for any progressive transformation, was the entry point for this new politics of power. The break with punteros and clientalism came hand-in-hand with the creation of new social relationships, such as horizontalidad and politica afectiva, and the development of a new value production, as seen with autogestión.
Theory versus practice: challenging the ‘other’ power of the movements
Despite the fact that social movement actors in dozens of movements and groups, representing tens and hundreds of thousands of people, clearly state that their aim is not to take state power, there are still a number of social scientists who argue that the movements have failed since they have not done so, and neither have they even attempted to create a political party that might counter the government. This argument tends to be grounded in the contentious politics framework (a paradigm that is challenged as insufficient in Chapter 8).
It is important to note that many of the people making these arguments have had little and sometimes no direct relationship to the movements. By relationships with the movements, I mean ongoing relationships where the person writing about the movement actually goes to Argentina and spends time with movement participants, in the location that they are organizing in and from: for example, in an unemployed neighborhood or recuperated workplace.1
The sociologist James Petras has contributed significantly to the literature on Latin America over the past thirty years; in particular, in his analysis of US foreign relations and discussions of the more contentious social movements have been important. However, his analysis is based only within the contentious framework and this, coupled with a predetermined view of what success would mean for a movement and for society, means that his perspectives on the autonomous movements have little room for maneuver. Rather than attempting to understand what the movements are doing and why, Petras’ analysis begins within the context of his own goals. This limits his ability to hear and see what is really taking place and does an enormous disservice to the movements, casting them in a light that is of his creation, rather than theirs, at times even arguing that they do not exist at all. For example, in an article three years after the rebellion in Argentina, he surmised the following:
The question of state power was never raised in a serious context. It became a declaratory text raised by sectarian leftist groups who proceeded to undermine the organizational context in which challenge for state power would be meaningful. They were aided and abetted by a small but vocal sect of ideologues who made a virtue of the political limitations of some of the unemployed by preaching a doctrine of ‘anti-power’ – an obtuse mélange of misunderstandings of politics, economics and social power.
(Petras 2004: 29)
Earlier in the same article, with regard to the unemployed workers’ movement, he notes:
Ironically the system of local personal patronage relations has been justified by referring to ‘horizontal structures’, an ideology popularized by the ‘anti-power’ ideologues. The failure of the ‘horizontalist’ to achieve democratic control is in large part a result of the lack of class-consciousness (‘a class for itself’), which is a necessary development to exercise democratic control. Democracy in the piquetero movement without class-consciousness, did not lead to a sustained assembly-style political process. Instead the popular rebellions and initial militancy led to a narrow focus on immediate consumption, social dependence on local piquetero leaders and in some cases to political bosses. The emphasis on ‘autonomy’ and ‘spontaneity’ of the piqueteros by the anti-power ideologues at the time of the rebellion was the other side of the coin to the subordination of the piqueteros to the new local regime bosses in its aftermath. Both phases reflect the absence of organized class-conscious political education.
(Petras 2004: 23)
Then on the question of revolution, meaning in his terms, the taking of state power, à la the storming of the Bastille, Petras continues:
The leaders of the piqueteros rode the wave of mass discontent; they lived with illusions of St. Petersburg, October 1917, without recognizing that there were no worker soviets with class-conscious workers. The crowds came and many left when minimum concessions came in the form of work plans, small increases and promises of more and better jobs.
(Petras 2004: 28)
During my time in Solano I raised the question of power on a particular occasion: ‘And what of power?’
Neka: We want to take power. [everyone laughs]
Alberto: What we believe is that transformation occurs when one begins to relate differently to one another, and begins to have other values …
Our principal struggle is this: the generation of new subjectivities, new relationships, and ones that have to do with the new transformations. We don’t think this will come about because of a revolutionary president or a revolutionary group like we’ve seen historically, in Russia and China for example, where they fought for values and ideals but ended up continuing the same oppression, and freedom remains absent from their lives.
(Conversation in Solano, 2004)
These two perspectives are so disconnected that it is hard to take on board the ‘failure’ to which Petras refers; his judgment is based on what he perceived to be the movements’ goals, rather than what they actually were. There was never a desire to create a revolution like that of Russia in 1917.
When interviewed by the website Venezuela Analysis under the title ‘Changing the World by Taking Power’, Tariq Ali, a prominent Left political writer and intellectual, was asked: ‘Without adequately addressing state power, what alternative to neoliberalism is the global social justice movement offering?’ His response:
No, they have no alternative! They think that it is an advantage not to have an alternative. But, in my view that’s a sign of political bankruptcy. If you have no alternative, what do you say to the people you mobilize? The MST [Movemento Sem Terra] in Brazil has an alternative, they say ‘take the land and give it to the poor peasants, let them work it.’ But the Holloway book of the Zapatistas, it’s – if you like – a virtual book, it’s a book for cyberspace: let’s imagine. But we live in the real world, and in the real world this book isn’t going to work. Therefore, the model for me of the MST in Brazil is much more interesting than the model of the Zapatistas in Chiapas. Much more interesting.
(Ali, in Jardim and Gindin 2004)
Similarly, for an article in Monthly Review, Petras stated that the goal of the movements is to take power, therefore all questions regarding success or strategy must stem from this overarching objective:
Many questions remain unanswered. Is it possible for these new movements to unify into a national political force and transform state power? Can alliances be forged with employed urban industrial workers and employees and the downwardly mobile middle class to create a power block to transform the economy? Can local assemblies become the basis for a new assembly-based socialism?
In many ways it is difficult to argue against these writers, not because their argument is such a strong one, but because it begins in a place that is completely different from where the movements are and what they desire. Let me draw a parallel: a person may argue, for example, that my life is a failure since I do not own a home but, in fact home ownership has never been my intention or goal. There are of course strong arguments as to why I am not in a position to own a home, but how am I to engage with all of these critiques? They are in fact true – I do not have these things and there is clear evidence of that – but what about the fact that these are things I never desired? How should I enter this conversation? Am I even a part of it? Similarly with the movements, what they are doing is rethinking revolution and creating alternative paths to social and political transformation – a change that is envisioned as total, but not in the same way that Petras and others frame totality. This does not mean that the movements do not want to replace the state with something else, only that they do not want to use old and tired forms and tools of change, taking existing institutions of power and merely changing the individuals that constitute them. They clearly articulate that they are breaking away intentionally from this form of change. However, this position is not a politics of nonengagement with the state, neither is it one that argues for eliminating it; rather, it is a position that chooses to form alternative powers and new social relationships within the present, prefiguring the future.
El Vasco, from the Movement for Social Dignity in Cipolletti, responded directly to attempts made by various thinkers at conceptualizing the movements. He explained that writers and intellectuals ‘fall into the trap’ of framing the movements as a part of ‘the political’ – meaning the formal political structures of institutional power within the state, the sphere that is seen as the traditional place for politics. (This separation of the political and social spheres distinguishes the ones governing from those who are governed, which is fundamental to traditional state governance, and precisely what the movements are refusing to accept – hence the denial of representation and party politics.) El Vasco explained that, perhaps contrary to popular belief, the movements are ‘political actors’ within their own lives, and within their collective communities. What the movements are about is breaking down this division between the political and the social and creating a politics in everyday life.
William Robinson is a sociologist whose work focuses on the problems of global capitalism, often using the specific example of Latin America (Robinson 2008a). Unlike Petras and Ali, Robinson goes into much more detail with regards to the new movements, and his challenges address specific activities and forms of organization. However, his conclusions are much the same in that they are based in the same framework for social change. Petras’ allocated goal, and the starting point for his analysis, is the taking over of the state through a political party based in the working class:
It is quite true, as the Argentine autonomists point out, that political parties are bankrupt and corrupt and that local and global elites control the state (‘Que se vayan todos!’ – ‘Out with them all!’). Yet the autonomist movement, with its strict horizontalism, has come no closer to challenging this structure of elite power, nor has it been able to hold back the onslaught of global capitalism.
This line of argument comes from a long tradition of social scientists and intellectuals who view power as something to take, use, and wield. For them the only way to make lasting change is through taking over formal institutions of power. The danger with this argument is not that it is inherently wrong – and of course many in the movements want to stop the ‘onslaught of global capitalism’ – but it is the movements’ approach and method that is different. That one wants to transform society does not, and should not, mean that one must either create a political party to do so, or only see the agents of change as the traditionally organized working class. One of the main problems in the social sciences, and especially those who study social change and social movements, is that they often do not allow one to listen or see what is actually happening in particular circumstances. This is precisely because most intellectuals begin first with theory, or their analytic framework, and then look at the practice, when, in fact, theory and practice need to have a relationship that is reciprocal (Gramsci 2000). The result of this current state of affairs is that many thinkers are negating the existence of hundreds of thousands of social movement actors.
My friends in the movements tell me not to worry about this negation of their experience, theory, and practice – that it is not a big deal – they encourage me to ‘ignore these people’. The movements are continuing to create on their own agenda, within their own time, creating their own power. However – and this is where I disagree with my compañeros in the movements – in a world where it is all too often the academic or scholar who has the final authority on whether something is ‘legitimate’, and whether it should be included in the history books (something about which I have considerable critique), not engaging in a debate that insists on your obsolescence is a huge error.
Rejection of the state?
Of course, the autonomous movements’ rejection of traditional, centralized and hierarchical forms of power and organization did not originate in response to the theories of people such as John Holloway, Raul Zibechi or Colectivo Situaciones. As Emilio succinctly stated in 2003, ‘We don’t need anyone to impose a new Communist Manifesto on us.’ These scholars, among a number of others globally, have played an important role in helping to bring out the theories that are being developed in practice.2 Zibechi, in his book Geneología de la Revuelta (2003), discusses the daily changes taking place in the Argentine movements, and breaks down the dichotomy between reform and revolution to discuss the new politics and new revolution. He explains:
The state cannot be a tool for the emancipation since one cannot structure a society of non-power relations by means of the conquest of power. Once the logic of power is adopted, the struggle against power is already lost.
(2003: 21)
Similarly:
[T]he past century puts in relief the impossibility of advancing from power to a new society. The state cannot be used to transform the world. The role that we attribute to it should be revised.
(2003: 202)
As emphasized previously, people in the movements desire and are creating forms of self-management and alternative values, using forms of horizontalidad and direct democracy: they are meeting basic needs, providing food and healthcare, with minimal relationship to the state. They are asking of one another, as they look from side-to-side, not by looking above: as the Zapatistas say, ‘from below and to the left’. As El Vasco from the Movement for Social Dignity in Cipolletti explains:
Yes, I believe that the relationships with the state were always complex, the fact of putting forward autonomy necessarily implies not being trapped in the state agenda, but to look to satisfy concrete needs that you have and to take from the state all that we are able, as long as it does not get in the way of our sovereignty.
(Conversation in Cipolletti, Patagonia, late 2009)
Autonomia (α
τονομíα) is the Greek word for autonomy, the combined word roots ‘auto’ and ‘nomos’ meaning ‘self’ and ‘law’ – self-governance and self-legislation. Autonomy as used by the movements in Argentina is an evolving term, as is autogestión. Autonomy, as discussed by contemporary social movement and social change scholars, is posed in a number of ways. One is as a positive process of self-valorization, as discussed in the writing of Antonio Negri (1996); another is in the creation of spaces ‘beyond capital’, as with Massimo De Angelis (2007) (as will be discussed in Chapter 6). However, a third interpretation may be seen as a negative reaction, or negation that then creates the positive, as is the case with the movements in Argentina and as articulated by John Holloway (2002).
Ana Dinerstein, a scholar who has done research with the social movements, including with the more autonomous movements such as MTD Solano, explains:
Recently we have witnessed the emergence of autonomy as a central demand in political struggles. Autonomy is usually defined as self-determination and independent practices visà-vis the state. Autonomy asserts itself as organisational self-management. It is also based on the assumption that that autonomous practices can actually offer an alternative to economic and political capitalist practices and relations.
Many people I have met in the movements speak of being autonomous as something instinctive; it is a relationship, being autonomous from something, and then over time this relationship becomes something in itself and one desires autonomy as an active form of being rather than as something solely oppositional to the state. As with horizontalidad, autonomy comes from practice, it is a theory or an idea based in a way of being and necessitated by that new relationship. Again, necessity is a part of the creation:
In the past we were told what projects we had to complete by different ministries. We had no autonomy to explore our own interests and do what we wanted to do. Not until we fought for and created our autonomy were we able to do and create what we desire. We have an alternative economy, which we were able to create through this autonomy.
(Conversation with Maba and Orlando in Lanus, outside Buenos Aires, 2003)
It is this autonomy, as described above, that people are creating, an autonomy that is collective. The emphasis here is the construction of autonomy, not just the response to power using autonomy.
Argentine autonomy
I don’t believe there was ever a time when we said, ‘Yes, we’re autonomists. This is our identity.’ At one point, we were pressed to produce a more concrete definition of ourselves. I believe this was the moment when we said we wouldn’t allow ourselves to become any ‘-ist’ or ‘-isms’. What we’re doing is constructing an experience-based practice, and it is precisely this experience-practice that speaks for itself. Since this is an open movement and one that’s territorially based, with ours located in the neighborhood, we’re constantly discussing what horizontalidad and autonomy are and what they mean for us here. It’s an open and ongoing discussion.
(Conversation with Neka in Solano, 2004)
The argument on autonomy in Argentina is not that the entire country is trying to function based on their own agenda, not engaging with the state except when absolutely necessary, and, in fact, the movements discussed here are a minority of the experiences. However, there are many tens to hundreds of thousands of people involved in small, medium and large-scale autonomous social projects across Argentina, and it is these experiences that are the most interesting when examining alternative forms of power and construction.
Emilio, a former neighborhood assembly participant and now radical environmental activist, put forward a clear perspective shared by many in the movements. He is arguing for a fluid politics, one that is ever-changing, based on practice, meeting necessities, using new social relationships, and thus creating autonomy:
‘What is it that we want? What is our project?’ The good thing is we have no program. We are creating tools of freedom. First is the obvious: to meet our basic necessities. But the process of finding solutions to meet our basic needs leads us to develop tools that make us free. For me, that’s the meaning of autonomy. If you start to think about what constitutes autonomy, and you then start to discuss the notions of autogestión, self-sufficiency, web-like articulations, noncommercial exchange of goods, horizontal organizing, and direct democracy, you eventually end up asking yourself, ‘If we achieve all these things, will we then be autonomous?’ Autonomous from what? No. If one day we achieve true autonomy, we will not be autonomists, or autonomous – we shall, in fact, be free.
(Conversation in Jujuy, 2004)
Similarly, Orlando and Maba from MTD Solano continue with the discussion of autonomy that is a social creation:
Orlando: We are not a movement about making demands, but rather about creation. We are creating projects that don’t necessarily produce material goods to sell, but instead they build knowledge and professional and vocational skills. Compañeros learn a trade, compañeros in the health field strengthen their capacities to perform their work rather than assume the easy way out by simply giving a pill, and hey presto. This consists of discussing with compañeros the problems they are experiencing and preventing illness or whatever else ails them. Not just illness prevention in terms of ‘I have a cold, a fever’, etc., rather, illness prevention in all aspects of life, including the illness of capitalism. When you are ill, you go to the doctor, you are prescribed a remedy, and you take that remedy – and that remedy then gives you an ulcer. There might be something else you can do that does not affect you that way, remedies that are more natural – let’s find those alternative remedies. These are things we discuss.
Maba: It’s not as if the movement is responsible for solving our problems, but rather it is the workshops and skill-sharing in the movement where each compañero understands that he or she is the movement.
(Conversation in Lanus, outside Buenos Aires, 2003)
Autonomy and conflict resolution
As a part of the creation of autonomous ways of being, the movements are finding ways to resolve conflict without involving the state or police. I have participated in numerous assemblies, discussions, and later, reflections on the processes of conflict resolution within the movements. Here I would like to share two such processes in order to give a sense of what conflict resolution can look like within them.
Three neighborhood assemblies and two community groups, all but one of which emerged after the popular rebellion, came together in late 2002 to occupy a four-story abandoned warehouse next to the train station in Lomas de Zamora. They named this space ‘La Toma’ (‘The Taken’) after the Julio Cortazar story, ‘La Casa Tomada’. Lomas de Zamora is a poor, working class neighborhood, and it is not especially safe. When a movement participant went to wait for a train at night, the assemblies usually suggested that two other people go and wait with them. In this neighborhood the various assemblies came together to open this space as a community center, holding events similar to many other assemblies such as popular education, popular kitchens, activities for children, and so forth. It is also a space where neighbors work with street teens, conducting training and education as well as simply providing a place where they are respected, listened to, and can hang out without harassment. This is not without a great deal of challenges. Many of the young people who are now participating in La Toma have never had any structure or experience of accountability, and while a few of the assembly participants have various sorts of psychological or social work training, it is by no means uniform. The process described below took place in late 2003 while I was living in Argentina.
La Toma organized frequent social activities, including evening musical performances and dances. Similar to the Zapatista communities, and later some of the unemployed neighborhoods, alcohol and drugs were prohibited in the space. The night after one such party a young woman from the neighborhood and an assembly participant approached a few members of the assembly and shared with them that she had been sexually assaulted right outside La Toma by one of the teens who recently had begun to attend the social events. The assembly members who were told decided, together with this young woman, that this was an issue to take up in the assembly and not, at least for now, to take to the police.
I participated in the assemblies for the next few weeks where this issue was addressed. The young woman came to the assembly with a few friends and had a few assembly people sitting with her in the circle. The accused young man also came to the assembly, having been told of the accusation. Similarly, he was there with a few friends, and a few assembly people sat with him. For the next few weeks discussions were held where each person was able to explain what happened and their feelings about it. Eventually, proposals were made and agreed upon for a sort of restorative justice. Among those resolutions were that the young man agreed to get support for his alcohol misuse, that he would not go to any of La Toma’s parties until his alcoholism was under control, that he would meet with counselors on issues of sexual abuse, together with a few participants from the assembly who would go along to support him. He also had to meet with a few volunteers from the assembly on a weekly basis for the next few months, keeping them posted as to his participation in the various groups. If he failed to attend any of the agreed upon meetings he would not be permitted to enter the space of La Toma.
The end result was a very positive resolution where everyone concerned seemed satisfied and heard. The process was a lot more complex then space here allows me to describe. Included in the tensions and challenges were such things as the young man claiming that the young woman ‘asked for it’ by the way she was dressed, and that women usually push men away when they mean yes, etc. His friends who were with him were in complete agreement regarding these questions – at least at first. It was an amazing shift to see this tough street teen begin to listen to people around him on questions of gender and power, and that his desire to be a part of the assemblies and the occupied space was so great that he was willing to seek treatment and go to support groups with others from the assembly.
This is one of many examples of mediation and restorative justice that I witnessed in the movements. It reflects the actuality of autonomy within the movements with regard to conflict resolution without state or police intervention. It also reflects the deep level of integration that the movements have achieved within their neighborhoods – that participants choose to bring problems and issues to them for resolution.
Another example of autonomous justice in which I participated was in the Movement for Social Dignity in Cipolletti during 2009. At the time I was staying with participants in the movement, going to the collective space each morning, participating in various activities and workshops. On this particular morning, as everyone was drinking mate and forming a circle to discuss the day, one of the older members of the movement asked about a younger one, wondering where she was. It was then that we learned from one of her friends that this young woman and her little sister were not coming to the space because they were too afraid to leave their house. They lived in one of the villas, and as was explained, their neighbor had begun to terrorize the young women. He was throwing things into the window of their home, yelling and following them when they left the house, he had even thrown rocks at them a few times. He was well known for violence, robbery and assault. The girl’s father was afraid of the neighbor, as were most people in the neighborhood. As this story began to emerge in bits and pieces from a few of the teens in the movement, it was decided that we, the movement, should call the house to hear from the girls what the situation was. It was the girls and not the father who were in the movement at the time. After a long phone conversation, it was revealed that the girls were not only being threatened by this man, but that their father would not call the police because he knew that the man was a good friend of many on the local police force. The police are perceived as being incredibly corrupt in this region, allegedly often being involved in criminal activity and violence, so people in the neighborhoods cannot go to them for support or help.
The group began to talk about this particular issue. It was agreed that the girls were a part of the movement and therefore anything that threatened them was an issue for the movement: it was totally unacceptable that these girls could not leave their home because of fear. After lengthy discussions it was decided that we, as a large group, would go to the girls’ house, show our support for them and, together with them, leave the neighborhood. It was also decided that a group of people from the movement who lived close to their house would continue to go there and walk the girls wherever they needed to go, whenever they needed it. This was decided after a few hours of discussion and debate, which included some of the teen boys suggesting that we beat up the neighbor, go there with bats, patrol with guns, etc. It was a long process of achieving consensus.3
There was also a long-term plan to make flyers to hand out in the various neighborhoods about violence and neighbors taking action, organizing events in the small local park and a few other longer-term suggestions that were to be discussed in the upcoming assemblies. The longer-term goal was to make the neighborhood a safer place through an active and visible presence.
In the meantime, we were all going to the house of these girls. With no small amount of trepidation on behalf of many movement participants – myself included, I must admit – we departed for their house together. We knew from conversations with them that the man was armed, although he had not yet attempted to shoot at them. It was of course, the being armed part that I most feared, but in a group of about thirty we went to their home. Everyone but the two people who went into the house waited in the street outside, showing that the girls were supported. I interviewed one of the adult participants later that afternoon. He reflected:
If we are not generating new feelings and new relationships then we are basically being complacent. We know how the police will respond if we do not act in this other way – they will respond with violence – and if we act in violence to support our compañera then we are just reproducing what the state wants us to do. What we are doing is rejecting and negating that way of being, those ways of creating justice, negating the police and affirming ourselves – our capacity to avoid that and create something else. The idea to do something came about immediately from some of the teens in the group. They wanted to act and to act fast, and act together … we act from our collective power, and at the same time it is what gives us strength to act. I think it’s an example of this we trying to build.
(Conversation in Cipolletti, Patagonia, 2009)
The above are two examples of how conflicts are resolved internally and are consistent with countless other such experiences. There have been other occasions of conflict existing between one movement and another, or between participants in different movements, and a fully participatory way to resolve such conflicts is yet to be developed. However, as of 2010, movement participants were beginning to discuss various ways in which this could occur, ranging from circle justice concepts to assemblies comprised of participants from various movements, but this has yet to be formally established. It is seen as a challenge, but one that is an active discussion and a next step.
Conclusion
Hierarchy and ‘power over’ (whether punteros, workplace managers, or delegates to an organization) will not create freedom, and taking over the state is not the way to change society: this is the case when the desired changes are new, horizontal, emancipatory, social relationships. These are some of the core ideas that the autonomous movements in Argentina, as well as the Zapatistas in Chiapas and numerous other regions throughout the world, are practicing. This notion of autonomy is not a simple concept and is even more complicated in practice. However, what is so inspiring and interesting about these movements is that despite these challenges, they continue what they are doing. Many tens of thousands of people throughout Argentina are creating alternative means of sustenance and survival that are based on their own agendas, not those of the state or institutional power, even if they choose to engage with or take what they can from the state (as will be addressed in detail in Chapters 7 and 8). Power is not something to take, but something to create. This is the case if one sees process as integral to what may constitute a desired end:
Still, the defiant movements from the bottom that are fueled by interdependent power hold at least the hope that the needs and dreams of the great masses of the planet’s people will make their imprint on the new societies for which we wish.
(Fox Piven 2008: 12)
Many criticisms can be made of the autonomous movements, and when these critiques are well intended and constructive, they are useful; however, looking at alternative ways of organizing, creating, and engaging is crucial if we are to move ahead in the theory and practice of social change, social movements, and revolution. When an eight-year-old girl from the unemployed workers’ movement of Solano demands an assembly because she feels that her parents yell at her too much, something is happening. She feels power. Then when the movement resolves this conflict, among many others, with some much larger (except perhaps to this little girl), there is an autonomous creation taking place that cannot be ignored:
Sociologists have a contribution to make in fostering interdependent power. Our sociological preoccupations equip us to trace the contemporary patterns of social interdependence that are weaving the world together. We can describe these patterns in ways that reveal the contributions to social life of the majorities of the world’s people.
(Fox Piven 2008: 12)
Ultimately, in conclusion, the movements want to and are creating alternative power and carefully negotiating their relationships to institutional power, as stated so clearly by El Vasco:
We take from the state all that we are able, as long as it does not get in the way of our sovereignty.
(Conversation in Cipolletti, Patagonia, late 2009)