What should research priorities on the WSF process? (10nov06)

Political parties & WSF
            differences
            + role
identity - autonomy
open spaces/ representation
research common tracking orgs attending WSF/SFs
tracking outcomes
ethnicity
social location/inequality + WSF/SFs
            who is left out? / silences
when / who / HOW -> explanatory priorities
examples: FTAA’s defeat (HSA; WSF)
            Nairobi -> migration?
            people’s tribunals
            civil society
micro / macro
tracking orgs:
            activists (reasons for attending WSF, resources, interventions)
            outcomes (small & big ones!)
Neo-liberalism
consequences in Civil Society
            national political actors (national examples)
            institutional ex (UAOS in Mexico)
            discourse changes (Tobin Tax, France)
            in political parties (comparative perspective US - Latin America
            Mass media
                        comparative analysis
                        by regions/countries
Multiplicity of resistances
WSF + media perceptions
            how + why?
            Corporate -> leaders
            independent

Media
Outcomes/consequences
Autonomy/cooptation
Descriptions
Strategic prescriptions

(Notre Dame, November 11, 2006)

My resistance to studying WSF academically from outside. point is not to study WSF but to do it

•          ex MWSF NIGD vs. INoSA panel
•          rat choice study of CA solidarity movements

WSF is yesterday’s news. Academics always late to game. WSF was special moment--fun while it last, but it is over:

•          broke
•          logistical nightmare
•          dynamic process–let go of romantic attachment to past.
•          Time to move on
•          initiative moves from global to local level
•            here we’re trying to engage US w/ world
•          more important to work on local level
•          Robert: global stage is default cuz local is too difficult
•            but we are always fascinated w/ size
•            this maybe makes us miss more fundamental ideological shifts
•          engages different issues on local level
•            global: neoliberalism & militarism
•            MWSF: race, immmgrations
•          or maybe not?
•            local focus reinforces myopic view of the world
•            interaction btwn global & local: glocal
•          different formulation requires different mechanisms & engagements

We are out of touch w/ popular movements

We are at the best and worst of times. Pundits say US elections mandate for change, but little sense of what this means (problem of blue dog demos–against our class interests)

From protest to proposal. How to make concrete changes?  Every option seems to have shortcomings

•          social movements can only do so much
•          need to engage state power
•          long running anarchist vs. communist debates over state power
•          Shortcomings of electoral politics
•          but no good alternatives
•          everything has short comings
•          compromises: probably no perfect solution
•          guerrilla warfare is simply off the table
•          even Ayers/Dorn say this, even while they remain revolutionaries
•          what other ways do we have to engage state power?
•          risk of nihilism
•          worst possible option is to do nothing

summary:

•          need politically engaged participatory studies, not “objective” academically disengaged studies
•          what is purpose of this discussion, if point is to change world?

what can academics contribute:

•          action/reflection - praxis
•          need to create ideological orientation
•          but how to do this w/o being dogmatic or vanguardist
•          how to rethink other/new structures
•          importance of being dynamic

What are the most useful methodologies & biggest methodological challenges to doing research on the WSF process? (10nov06):

Are we studying a group or process?
Question of objectivity & distance
Our audience does matter?
Limitations of engaged scholars
Who is at the table?
A talk shop
Importance of place, of power
Question of identity
Question of balance of power
Transnational perspective on transnational phenomena
Use of complementary methodologies
Engagement - a problematic issue
Limitations of survey - missing cases
WSF as an ontological question
Being critical yet supportive
Blind spots:
            1. youth SF (generational gap; double standard)
            2. Huge gender issue within Int’l Council
Need for transparency
WSF is adapting feminist principles w/o acknowledgment
importance to acknowledge partiality
importance of counter factual
what outside the forum is rich
more is happening at national or subnational level

RESEARCH TOPICS

Social inequality: How does this play out in the social forums?

Race in the U.S. Context

Role of regionalization

Time perspective/history

What happens before, during, and after the social forums?

How did we get here?  Framings?

Negotiations of Differences/Collective Identity?

Current state of democratic practices in countries/regions

Improvement in means of communications

Social and political context

Realities and divisions of the nation-state

Transparency & Accountability

Commitment to global and its sources, does this reflect declining opportunities at other levels?

Discourse/tactics.  Global to home. What are they learning?  how to do this?

Who are the activists?  They vary by issues and identities

What is the SF?  Local/global?  An actor/space? 

Level of governance & scale of protest
            Scale jumping

The economic context

The process & conflict

Does the SF process vary by scale?
            Links between global and sub-global social forums

SF process is complex & varied

When does the local/global get evoked?

Meanings/narratives in different contexts

Neoliberalism as a master frame
            -national differences

“Glocal”

Identity-building
            Variation by place

Global institutional context
& activists’ understandings of it.
& variation across regions

Economic Context

Global institutional shift

Shift in governance
            -local
            -regional context

Closing of political Space
            -democratic space
            -opening

Concentration of political and economic power

Political horizons
            Political imagination and repertoires

Citizenship

Continuity and Emergence
            @ target (?)

Role of the state/civil society

 

Political economic context

Facilitating factors

Co-determination

Collective agency

Makeràoutcomes

CLUSTERS:

Closing-opening spaces

Emergences WSF: day to day

Internal—external factors

Political imaginary
Political Opportunity

Identity politics & Culture

Identity politics and culture

 

Context

Historical Process
-iterations

Culture/Identity

Mobilizing Structures
            -Network/Coalitions

Legacies/Temporalities

Substantive & methodological issues (continued 11nov06)

Questions

• How to have a more collective research project?
• How to produce knowledge that furthers the interests of political activism?
• How do we democratize our research & epistemology?

The USSF as a research vehicle
What are the positive & negative effects of the SF process?
Building social & political constituencies of the WSF?
What does research bring to the WSF?

• Positive & negative?
• Added value of research
• Is research emancipatory

Integrity of knowledge
Why should we go to the forum?
Who is not there?
The WSF is a potpourri
WSF – presence of students & those w/ degrees
Academics should go as activists
Most US academics/sociologists do not know about the SF
Creating an int’l group of scholar activists (www.inosa.org)
Position of northern scholars in the WSF