Globalrevolution / Network movements / Technopolitics | Berlin 31.01.2014 | Rosa Luxemburg Stiftung

globalrevolution/network-movements/technopolitics/adrià rodríguez @adriaral

participating with Fundación de los Comunesparticipating with #GRRN Global Revolution Research Networkdeveloping Project Kairós www.projectkairos.net

berlin 31.01.2014

*A big part of the data and ideas here presented are the insights of the datanalysis15m research group based in Barcelona, and the study “Tecnopolítica y 15M, la potencia de las multitudes conectadas”, coordinated by Javier @Toret. Find more information here

All these slides are under a CC BY SA license

What does #globalrevolution means?

*comon patterns*nation-State is no longer the framework*protests get directly global*geopolitical earthquake: shaking global governance*three transversal axis: the how, the who and the what

technopolitics (how): new ways of affection and comunication, Internet, social media, social networks.composition (who): highly-educated generation, hyperconected youths, impoverishment, broken social ladder, structural crisis labour market (high unemployment rates, precarity and flexibility as the norm), debt (household and/or public debt), Structural Adjustment Plans and neoliberal reforms, attack to the commons.democracy (what): institutional crisis, crisis of representation, nation-state crisis, governance crisis, corruption, constitutional crisis.

ON #GLOBALREVOLUTIONThe networked character of modern society makes country-specific unrest predictions point-less. There is, in reality, one political entity that matters. Right now it is more unequal than it’s ever been; its core economic model is destroyed; the consent of its citizens to be governed is eroded. It is the world - Paul Mason (on The Economist’ unrest predictions)

ON #GLOBALREVOLUTION

Number of world protests by main grievance/demand 2006-2013

ON #GLOBALREVOLUTIONThe logics of contagion and the protests worldwide

2010-2013

#15o 2011 World protest in more than 1000 cities

1. Twitterevolution?or*Technopolitics paradigm

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS

<VIDEO. #15m: the squares and the net>

Internet use grows a 20% during the emergence of the #15m and the occupation of the squares all around Spain in 2011. This increase is mainly on the use of Facebook and Twitter.

Technopolitics is not clicktivism nor cyberactivism.

Technopolitics is not just the mere use of the Internet and social networks, but a new paradigm of political organization, affection, communication and struggling through and within the net.

Technopolitics is not about Internet itself but about the capacity of Internet to increase the political potentialities of the hiperconected multitudes, to increase capacities of cooperation and affection between brains/bodies through the Internet tools.

Technopolitics paradigm is not homogenic, there are differences between countries and regions: differences on digital divide, internet cultures, and digital alphabetization.

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONSNew political paradigm

#15m 2011 network(cooperation and interaction)

spanish political parties network(competitivity and identity)

2. Social movements?or*Network-system*Network-movements

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS

Network-system its a complex network with a multiplicity of nodes which are articulated organically and in a ever changing way.

Network-movements go beyond the sociological cathegory of social movements. They are articulated through the network and reach and involve a much more larger number of people than the ‘former’ social movements.

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS

network-system #15m 2011

network-system #15m 2012

3. Horizontailty? Leaderless?or*Transversality*Distributed/temporary/coreographical leadership

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS

Social media use is not characterized by absolute horizontality, but is rather accompanied by the rise of new forms of soft leadership. The term “choreo-graphy” is a metaphor to render the idea that at the time of social media protest activity is not as spontaneous and disorganised as it might appear at first sight. Rather, by using social media, acting as Facebook admins or popular movement tweeps, contemporary digital activists come to act as chore-graphers or soft leaders of sorts - Paolo Gerbaudo

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS

transversality and distributed/temporary/coreographical leadership

4. Fiction vs. Real?or*Geoterritory-Cyberterritory*Simbiosis*Multilayer revolt*Augmented-event

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONSNot everyone in the world is in the Internet, but everyone in the Internet is in the world- @Ciudadadano_zero0

<EGYPT: Tweeting Mubarak’s overthrow>

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS

multilayer revolt

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS

voces25s2012

5. Mass media vs. alternative media?or*Global public sphere*Distributed journalism

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS

<TWEETS: Viral Gezi memes>

We can hope for a transformation of mass-media power that will overcome contemporary subjectivity, and for the beginning of a post-media era of collec-tive-individual reappropriation and an interactive use of machines of informa-tion, communication, intelligence, art and culture. -F.Guattari (1990)

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS

The whole world tracking #occupywallstreet upheaval 17.09.2011

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONS

front pages newspapers 11-13 May 2011 front pages newspapers 16-18 May 2011

RETHINKING ASSUMPTIONSFront page coverage of Brazilian protests

by the Brazilian media

Front page coverage of the Arab Srping by the Spanish media

technopolitical challenges

*Developing a common semiothics/semanthics/language for trasnational technopolitics.*Working on new tools, digital alphabetization, a common technopolitical culture(s), and a ‘decolonization’ of technopolitics (Qzone (China), VKontakte (Russia), etc)*Confronting big brother and kill switch (State/market control): net neutrality.

network-movements challenges

*Keep on producing inclusivity and the becoming-99% of the movements*Interwave and strengthen trasnational network-movements.*Multilayer and multiscale struggles: geoterritory-cyberterritoy, global-local.

political/institutional challenges

*Deepen institutional changes at the trasnational level (create new trasnational institutions for real democracy).*Defy counterevolutionary situations and forces (see arab winter).*Experiment on new constituent-instituent distributed processess (not just destituent ones).

SOME CHALLENGES

danke schön!