Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
These models were so hierarchical that in the effort to combat systems of oppression,
they inadvertently re-created the same systems they were trying to replace. In addition,
this model of organizing was inherently exclusivist because not everyone can take up
guns and go the mountains to become revolutionaries. Women, who have to care for
families,couldparticularlybeexcludedfromsuchrevolutionarymovements.So,move-
ments began to develop organizing models that are based on integrating the organizing
into one's everyday life so that all people can participate. For instance, a group might
organize through communal cooking, but during the cooking process, which everyone
needs to do anyway in order to eat, they might educate themselves on the nature of ag-
ribusiness.
At the 2005 World Social Forum in Brazil, activists from Chiapas reported that this
movement began to realize that one cannot combat militarism with more militarism be-
cause the state always has more guns. However, if movements began to build their own
autonomous zones and proliferated them until they reached a mass scale, eventually
there would be nothing the state's military could do. If mass-based peoples' movements
begin to live life using alternative governance structures and stop relying on the state,
then what can the state do? Of course, during the process, there may be skirmishes with
the state, but conflict is not the primary work of these movements. And as we see these
movements literally take over entire countries in Latin America, it is clear that it is pos-
sible to do revolutionary work on a mass scale in a manner based on radical participat-
ory rather than representational democracy or through a revolutionary vanguard model.
Many leftists will argue that nation-states are necessary to check the power of mul-
tinational corporations or will argue that nation-states are no longer important units of
analysis. These groups, by contrast, recognize the importance of creating alternative
forms of governance outside of a nation-state model based on principles of horizontal-
ism. In addition, these groups are taking on multinational corporations directly. An ex-
ample would be the factory movement in Argentina where workers have appropriated
factories and seized the means of production themselves. They have also developed co-
operative relationships with other appropriated factories. In addition, in many factories
alloftheworkiscollectivized.Forinstance,aparticipantfromagroupIworkwithwho
recently had a child and was breastfeeding went to visit a factory. She tried to sign up
for one of the collectively organized tasks of the factory, and was told that breastfeed-
ing was her task. The factory recognized breastfeeding as work on par with all the other
work going on in the factory.
This kind of politics then challenges the notions of “safe space” often prevalent in
manyactivistcirclesintheUnitedStates.Theconceptofsafespaceflowsnaturallyfrom
the logics of privilege. That is, once we have confessed our gender/race/settler/class
privileges, we can then create a safe space where others will not be negatively impacted
