PAP0213 - Alter-globalisation, Politics and Citizenship: An Account out of Portuguese Social Movements
Social movements, and more concretely the alter-globalisation ones, are spaces that permit to maintain a certain public sphere, which is not reserved to a particular social class – that is to say, neither the bourgeoisie nor the popular strata, but rather it is about a sphere which aims for the universality by incorporating wide and diverse sectors of the society. Following Habermasian terms in particular and the language of the Frankfurt School’s critical theory in general, I assume that social movements construct “communicative reason” as when activists denounce “instrumental rationality” under its economicist and neo-liberal variant or when they call into question globalisation in its current and hegemonic form. They are places for “ideal speech situation”, that is, beyond their personal or private interests, beyond their idiosyncrasies, people through social movements discuss and debate publicly, rationally and critically about issues concerning the public realm. They use their reason for political matters.
This concretely occurs notably via assemblies, print and virtual media. But, this is also the case through other repertoires of collective action as when they take to the streets during marches and demonstrations, as when they re-appropriate common kinds of public places as the square. This process also happens through the activation of various artistic expressions (dramaturgies, mises-en-scène, paintings, sculptures, songs, music, etc.), games, exchanges, sometimes around foods and drinks, all of them often taking place in the proper recuperated square.
Hence, through the example of Portuguese alter-globalisation social movements, we shall also see how their members make public spheres and reinvent democracy. This happens via repertoires of collective action that are often considered as “non-conventional politics” and including as “irrational”, in particular by a certain Establishment and adversaries. However, we shall observe that these actions have, on the contrary, their own rationalities, which reappraise the concept of conventionality in politics and in democracy, and finally the ideas and practices of politics and democracy themselves.
These are therefore the aspects I would like to develop in the following paper.