The Global Social Forum Rhizome: A Theoretical Framework

Abstract

This work draws on Deleuze and Guattari's image of the ‘rhizome’ to develop a framework for mapping and understanding the global social forum process and its implications for the broader global left. The image of the rhizome is insightful for analytically accentuating the nature and workings, as well as the challenges and contemporary shortcomings, of the social forum process and more generally the broader global movement(s). Thriving on multiplicity and thus lacking a dominant core or main axis, the social forum-as-rhizome emphasizes the multi-connectivity and heterogeneity of this process, which has no central actor, issue, strategy, or ideology, beyond the strong opposition to neoliberalism. While what I call the ‘Global Social Forum Rhizome’ allows for unprecedented connections as well as tempering and managing inherent antinomies of the alter-globalization movement(s), its logic simultaneously limits the degree of congealed and resilient movement building. In the final analysis, these intrinsic rhizomatic characteristics foster a rather thin articulation of commonalities and convergences, which result in a politics often unable to move beyond mere symbolic acts and resistances and towards organizing, campaigning, and concrete movement building.

Este trabajo se inspira en la imagen del ‘rizoma’ de Deleuze y Guattari, para desarrollar un marco para representar y entender el proceso del Fórum Social Global y sus implicaciones para la más amplia izquierda global. La imagen del rizoma es reveladora, tanto para acentuar analíticamente la naturaleza y el funcionamiento, como los retos y las carencias contemporáneas del proceso del Fórum Social y en mayores rasgos, el(los) movimiento(s) global(es) más amplio(s). Creciendo en multiplicidad y por lo tanto carente de un núcleo dominante o de un eje principal, el Fórum Social como rizoma enfatiza la conectividad múltiple y la heterogeneidad de este proceso, que carece de un actor central, cuestión, estrategia o ideología, más allá de la fuerte oposición al neoliberalismo. Mientras lo que yo llamo el ‘Fórum Social Global del Rizoma’ tiene en cuenta a las conexiones sin precedente, como también atenuando y controlando las antinomias inherentes del(los) movimiento(s) de alterglobalización, su lógica limita simultáneamente el grado de congelación y tenacidad del desarrollo del movimiento. En el análisis final, estas características intrínsecas del rizoma fomentan una articulación bastante escasa de similitudes y convergencias, que resultan en una política frecuentemente incapaz de moverse más allá de actos meramente simbólicos y de resistencias y hacia la organización, las campañas y el desarrollo concreto del movimiento.

本文借鉴了德勒兹与瓜塔里的“块茎说”，发展出一种测绘和理解世界社会论坛进程及其对更广义全球左派的意义的框架。“块茎说”是解析社会论坛进程和更普遍、更广泛的全球运动的性质、运作、挑战和当前不足的真知灼见。作为块茎的社会论坛因多样性的繁荣导致其缺少主导的核心或主茎，强调多元连通和进程的异质性，除了强烈反对新自由主义外，社会论坛缺少核心行为体、议题、战略或意识形态。虽然我所谓的“全球社会论坛块茎”虑及前所未有的连通和对另立全球化运动的内在矛盾的调节和管理，其逻辑同时限制了静态和有弹性的组织建设。总而言之，这种内在的块茎特点致其共同点和交汇点甚少，导致了一种往往无法超越仅为象征的行动和反抗，无法开展组织、竞选和具体的运动建构的政治。

이 글은 지구적 사회포럼 과정과 그것이 전 세계 좌파에게 주는 함의를 찾아내고 또 이해하기 위한 틀을 발전시키기 위하여 드뢰즈와 카타리의 ‘리좀(rhizome)’ 이미지를 다룬다. 리좀의 이미지는 사회포럼 과정과 보다 일반적으로 더 광범위한 지구적 운동들의 성격과 작동뿐만 아니라 도전과 현재의 부족한 점을 분석적으로 강조하는데 있어서 통찰력을 제공한다. 다양성이 증진되면서 지배적인 중심이나 주축이 없는 리좀으로서의 사회포럼은 과정의 다연계성(multi-connectivity)과 이질성(heterogeneity)을 강조한다. 이 과정은 신자유주의에 대한 강력한 반대 이상으로 중심적인 행위자, 이슈, 전략 혹은 이데올로기가 없다. 내가 ‘지구적 사회포럼 리좀’이라고 부른 것은 대안 세계화 운동들의 내적인 자기모순을 완화시키고 관리할 뿐만 아니라 전대미문의 연계를 허용하지만, 그것의 논리는 동시에 응집되고 끈질긴 운동의 건설을 제약한다. 최종 분석에서 이러한 내적인 리좀의 특성들이 공통점과 수렴의 약한 절합을 촉진시키며, 때로 단순히 상징적인 행동과 저항을 넘어서 구체적인 운동을 조직하고 선전하는 쪽으로 나아가지 못하는 정치로 끝난다.

Keywords:

• social movements
• World Social Forum
• European Social Forum
• rhizome
• capitalism
• neoliberalism
• class
• alter/anti-globalization movement
• global justice movement

Acknowledgements

I wish to thank Todd Wolfson for helpful suggestions on an earlier version of this article as well as the two anonymous reviewers for insightful and constructive comments and Ruth Reitan for her invaluable substantive suggestions and editorial guidance. Moreover, I would like to acknowledge the support of the University of South Florida's Research and Development Grant.

Notes

To date, eight centralized WSFs have been organized with four forums in Porto Alegre (Brazil) in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2005 and one each in Mumbai (India) in 2004, Nairobi (Kenya) in 2007, Belém (Brazil) in 2009, and Dakar (Senegal) in 2011, in addition to one polycentric WSF in 2006 at three different locations—Bamako (Mali), Caracas (Venezuela), and Karachi (Pakistan)—and two decentralized WSFs where various forums or activities took place around the globe, in 2008 and again in 2010.

Starting with the first European Social Forum (ESF) in Florence (2002), the first Asian Social Forum in Hyderabad (2003), the first Social Forum of the Americas in Quito (2004), and the first African Social Forum in Conakry (2004). The ESFs have drawn the largest number of participants: Florence in 2002: 60,000; Paris in 2003: 70,000; London in 2004: 50,000; Athens in 2006: 35,000.

http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/dinamic/main.php?id_menu=11&cd_language=2

The International Council (IC) is the permanent body of the WSF in which over 150 movements and organizations are represented. The IC assumes operational responsibility for the WSF.

Virtual ethnography is part of the ‘toolbox’ of multi-sited ethnography, which goes beyond a particular bounded field site. It is a methodological approach to study networked forms, including ethnographies of virtual, Internet-based environments, texts groups and communities and their use of information technology as well as the practices which make those uses of the internet meaningful in various contexts (see Hine, 2000).

On the transition from ‘Third World solidarity’ to ‘global solidarity’ to encompass a more reciprocal North–South relationship, see Olesen (2004).

http://www.tni.org/detail_page.phtml?&text10=newpol-docs_eurotopia&menu=11f

Funke (forthcoming).