From
the Battle of Seattle to Occupy Wall St, a new book revisits the major
challenges that grassroots movements face in the pursuit of social
change.
Flesher Fominaya, Cristina, Social Movements and Globalization. How Protests, Occupations and Uprisings are Changing the World. UK: Palgrave Macmillan (2014).
The
outbreak of the global financial crisis in 2008 has been considered, by
many, a turning point in the ways we come to understand our world.
Established worldviews and fixed mindsets are confronted with the
rapidly changing interrelations between the social, the political and
the economic domain. These developments pose a challenge to our daily
social experiences, as well as to academic social analysis, while at the
same time giving birth to new opportunities for social change.
In thinking about these developments, the latest book by Cristina Flesher Fominaya, Social Movements and Globalization,
comes as a careful dissection of some of the most intriguing concepts
relevant to the economic and political processes of the last century and
the enduring desire for social transformation.
Flesher Fominaya
provides us with a master compilation of all that catches our attention,
grasps our interest and urges our understanding.
Why
do social movements matter? What is their relevance in a globalized
world? How are they shaped by globalization? How do they shape
globalizing processes? These are only some of the burning questions that Social Movements and Globalization
comes up against.
Neoliberal economic globalization fueling social
inequalities, the precarity of labor, and the degradation of the
environment have, among other things, created new areas of contestation
and resistance that bring about new threats to social movements, but
that also provide them with a new arsenal of tactics and strategies.
Associations
between local, national and global acts of resistance are progressively
built, strengthening movements’ responses to the advancement of
neoliberal globalization. Yet the core challenge of overcoming
differences between national contexts persists.
Cleavages along gender,
class and race lines within movements are placed at the center of the
discussion, and the tension between autonomous and institutionalized
forms of movement organizing is alive and kicking.
Social Movements and Globalization
provides us with an anatomy of the relationships between social
movements, globalization and the pathways to social change.
With or
without prior knowledge of the field, the reader can find special
interest in the methodical exploration of definitions and conceptual
distinctions. Combined with a systematic exposition of protest events,
mobilizations and movement cases, Flesher Fominaya smoothly introduces
the reader to the direct experiences of contemporary social movements
and the way these are reflected in central theoretical debates.
A strong
conceptual grounding is progressively built up throughout the book,
always in direct reference to notable mobilizations and momentous
movements, making the storyline clear and the many aspects of
contemporary movement activism comprehensible.
Based on a well documented presentation of movements’ and mobilizations’ organizational and functional characteristics, Social Movements and Globalization
revisits all the major issues that those new to social movements want
to explore and those familiar with social movement activism and studies
want to remember.
More than a
comprehensive overview, however, the book is also a brave critique of
progressive political automatism and the linear progression of social
movements.
Instead of political actors confined within the limits of
overtly political aspects, Flesher Fominaya provides us with an
insightful account of social movements as key expressions of enduring
struggles for social transformation.
‘Cultural resistance’ is the key
challenge for progressive contemporary movements seeking to resist a
system of hegemonic ideologies and to delegitimize oppression and
inequality.
If we were to ask for
anything more from this remarkable account of contemporary movements, it
would be a more comprehensive account of conservative and right-wing
movements, which are only very briefly touched upon.
Flesher Fominaya,
however, leaves no room for doubt about their relevance; they are
“extremely important political actors responding to globalization
processes” and merit greater attention. Indeed, the largely understudied
regressive movements mobilizing for social and political setback, are
unequivocally significant actors vis-à-vis movements that exercise a
fundamental (anti-systemic) critique to the globalization of neoliberal
capitalism.
The deliberate omission
of regressive movements from the analysis, however, leaves no doubts
about the importance of Flesher Fominaya’s new endeavor. Social Movements and Globalization
is a brave look into the complex associations of social movements,
globalization, social theory and the practice of movement activism in
the pursuit of social change.
Parthena Xanthopoulou-Dimitriadou is a PhD candidate in Social Movement Studies at the European University Institute.
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