Cultural Barriers to Activist Networking: Habitus (In)action in Three European Transnational Encounters

Abstract

Transnational coordination is a key aspiration of activists seeking to mobilize globally, yet the literature pays insufficient attention to the impact of cultural differences on transnational networking. In this article I draw on ethnographic data from three European autonomous social movement encounters in the Global Justice Movement (2002–2004) to demonstrate the impact of culture clashes between activists on transnational networking. I use the concept of habitus to explore how routinized, taken for granted, symbolic systems of meaning that individuals from shared locations have in common shape their interactions in transnational encounters. This conception of culture is underutilized in social movement analysis yet offers important insights into internal movement dynamics. I argue that despite the autonomous commitment to radical openness and plurality, a lack of attention to the empirical reality of place‐based activist subcultures and habitus actually works against the “cosmopolitanism” that many activists and scholars aspire to.

Digital Solidarity, Analog Mobilization: An Ethnography of the Technology-Embedded Protest Networks of the Québec Student Strike

“…Qualitative ethnographic means (including interviews, textual or discourse analysis, participant observation, descriptive observation, etc.) have long been used in studying cultural groups (Clifford, 1986;Hannerz, 2003;Willis & Trondman, 2000), and are particularly useful for understanding social movements, especially technology-embedded ones (Bonilla & Rosa, 2015;Flesher Fominaya, 2016;Kavada, 2012;Milkman, Lewis, & Luce, 2013b). While ethnographic data collection strategies provide a valuable insight into the cultural practices and values of a given people, it is important to accurately represent the population being studied in terms of the cultural characteristics that tie a group together or its collective identity, what James Carey (1989) calls the "representation of shared beliefs" (p. 18), especially when the researcher is not a member of the population being studied, as was the case in this research.…”

“…As information and feelings get shared through networks structures, it leads to greater solidarity and connection between like-minded individuals (Gerbaudo & Treré, 2015). It is not always perfect-deliberation and horizontalism can break down in the presence of online participatory technologies (Flesher Fominaya, 2016)-but the democratic possibilities of these technologies create the possibility of connection through Tewksbury Technology-Embedded Protest Networks the sharing of information, knowledge, and affect. The distribution of content through network-based structures creates ties, but it is movements' effective use of those ties through Nancy's (2000) notion of being together (both affectively and in space-based practice) that has the greatest possibility of creating effective democratic change.…”

“…Yet social media is not a plug-and-play technology for democracy, despite overblown attributions to so-called "Twitter revolutions" (Andersen, 2011;Morozov, 2009), which fail to understand the complex processes of social action. Conversely, other accounts of contemporary movements suggest that direct mobilizations and occupations of space continue to be central strategies for political struggles worldwide (Carolyn, 2018;Duncan, 2017;Flesher Fominaya, 2014, 2016.…”

“…Over 50 individuals were interviewed for this project, including community organizers, student participants, journalists, media producers, student union representatives, government officials, union representatives, and others. Using a theoretical framework of participatory affect and politics (Berlant, 2011;Butler, 2015;Castells, 2013;Duncan, 2017;Hardt & Negri, 2009Nancy, 1991Nancy, , 2000, community and technological belongingness (Boyd & Ellison, 2007;Kavada, 2012;Lave & Wenger, 1991;Turkle, 2011;Wenger, 1998), and techno-activist literature (Comunello, Mulargia, & Parisi, 2016;Flesher Fominaya, 2014, 2016Gerbaudo & Treré, 2015;Kavada, 2015) this article argues that it was the participants' online-offline interconnectedness that allowed for a new conceptualization of community participation to emerge through a number of strategies of cobelonging and being together that span various cultures and constituencies, both online and offline, in what Zeynep Tufekci (2017) terms a "network protest" (p. 4). Furthermore, the role of sharing-of information and knowledge, of collective struggle in space, of affective connections-represents a coming together through networks of being, a feeling of togetherness that unites people under some degree of commonality.…”

Creating Space for Belonging within the West Virginia Progressive Movement

“…Nathan sees bringing people together outside of the work of the movement as vital to its success. In the forming of these bonds, a sense of belonging is created for those in the movement Flesher (2016). shows the importance of creating a sense of collective solidarity in the creation and sustainability of transnational movements.…”