Public Sociology at the USSF

Some reflections on organizing the Peace Caucus at the USSF:

Although I had organized the Peace Caucus with a general idea of the action plans I was hoping to see us agree upon, the result was nothing like what I anticipated. Moreover, I think what we experienced here reflects a general objective of the World Social Forum process, namely to provide spaces where people can start to articulate and develop new ways of doing politics. The WSF process emerged from the widespread realization that representative democracy is failing in most of the world to address the real needs people face. Economic globalization is threatening existing democratic rights and freedoms, and political leaders remain unwilling to confront the challenges of globalization to democracy.

The call to action of the Peace Caucus reflects the WSF aims of nurturing networks and building movement unity in a “horizontal” rather than top-down or “vertical” way. Its emphasis on culture of peace and human rights reflects the need to nurture identities that can more readily transcend the stubborn boundaries structured by racism, classism, patriarchy, and nationalism in the dominant culture. Existing political and economic structures have frustrated effective movement-building in the past, but most movements’ efforts to promote social change have sought to work within at least some aspects of these institutional and cultural structures. Thus, we’ve supported candidates who oppose wars and promoted Congressional bills to limit development of specific weapons systems. We’ve advocated for an end to violent conflict while neglecting persistent structural violence. We’ve tried (with limited success) to do “outreach” to bring more people of color into a largely white and middle class peace movement so that we could have more political impact. If we want to achieve successful outcomes, we need to change what we do in dramatic ways. If violence is built into the basic structures of international capitalism and nationhood, we need to be mindful of how these institutions have shaped our own thinking and perceptions. George Martin suggested that we need to abandon the idea of “outreach” in favor of “engagement” with other communities in order to address these challenges.

This latter point was dramatized in the final plenary of the USSF, the People’s Movement Assembly, which provided two-minute time slots for groups to present their resolutions to the wider USSF assembly. Indigenous rights organizers were exceeding this allotted time, and the moderator took the microphone from a Bolivian indigenous leader in order to keep the program on schedule. The move was seen as deeply offensive to the large delegation of indigenous organizers, and indigenous leaders negotiated with USSF organizing committee to have time to offer their views on the incident and to conduct a traditional healing ceremony to foster new understanding and trust between indigenous and other groups. While my own western and middle-class background (as well as my need to catch a plane home!) made me sympathetic with the aim of providing equal time for all groups and keeping the program to its published schedule, this action in the space of the USSF helped me realize how much my own sensibilities have been shaped by the structures and institutions I’m seeking to transform. By forcing every group to articulate its statement in two minutes, we were privileging groups with greater familiarity with the English language and with written (versus oral) traditions, among other biases. Cultural practices themselves help reproduce inequality and oppression. This is something we can recognize very clearly in theory, but we might miss it in practice.

Another lesson I took away from this experience is that the WSF process creates open spaces for people to bring a variety of issues and formats of engagement, but it is used most effectively when leaders emerge to actively implement the WSF aims of building a networked movement. Such leaders organize workshops that bring diverse groups together rather than simply present projects of particular groups. They also help participants learn about the broader WSF process by integrating themes from plenary sessions into workshops and making references to other social forums. I sought to perform such a leadership role, and I witnessed many others doing so as well. In fact, the USSF was the most globally conscious of all the social forums I have attended in this country. This is partly because many members of the national planning committee have attended several World Social Forums and they appreciate the importance of building ties between U.S. and global social movements. The USSF website, program, and plenary sessions were used to help participants understand how our forum fits within the larger global context. The successful communication of this message was clear in the fact that quite a number of the resolutions presented at the People’s Movement Assembly noted that groups were planning local social forums and intended to participate in the January 26, 2008 global day of action called by the WSF International Council.

A final reflection I took away from the USSF is that we live in a very diverse country, but we have no structures that enable us to engage in dialogues with people different from ourselves. Our society is highly segregated by race and class, and this prevents inclusive, democratic deliberation about what policies are best for our country as a whole. The WSF process has helped to give birth to a truly democratic space where people long disenfranchised by our electoral process can raise issues of concern to them, learn about the views of others, and consider ways of addressing shared problems. USSF planners were very wise to delay a U.S. Social Forum until there was time to educate and mobilize among the most excluded groups in our society. Holding a forum before grassroots groups of low-income people and people of color could mobilize would have effectively closed these groups out of the process. The success of USSF organizers in mobilizing a diverse array of participants and in bringing in some of the most marginalized groups in our society was evident throughout the spaces of the forum, and a member of the WSF International Council called ours the most diverse of all forums. The U.S. has challenged other social forum organizers to intensify their efforts to be more inclusive.

Reflections on Public Sociology in Social Movements
I close with two points that are on the front of my mind as I regroup after a truly amazing several days. The WSF process both challenges and provides opportunities for public intellectuals. I believe that socially engaged scholars can play important roles in helping support the WSF process, especially by helping people learn about it. But there is certainly an anti-intellectual streak that is part of a more generalized opposition to hierarchy in this movement. This was reflected in the decision to exclude big names from the plenary sessions and to maintain a focus on the important work of “everyday” people. It was also dramatized in the reaction of a group of Palestinians to the selection of a plenary speaker who was not Palestinian (and who publicly criticized Hamas, to add insult to injury). Nobody wants to have others speak for them—especially if that other is from a group that has oppressed one’s own people. Scholars need to be constantly mindful of how power and inequality operate in our interactions with the movements we study and participate in. We must also appreciate that people outside the scholarly community can also produce knowledge, and they have developed theories to make sense of the world as they know it. We can learn as much from them as they can from us.

Finally, my work on the WSF process convinces me that participating in the process is a very useful if not an essential way to gaining a more complete understanding of it. It is difficult to appreciate the nuances of the analyses and tensions articulated in these spaces without long-term and deep engagement with it. By organizing within the WSF, I engaged my own “political imagination,” as WSF architects intended with this process. I could test the possibilities and obstacles to building networks across diverse groups within this process, which allows me to offer a more informed analysis of the impacts of the process. Had I remained outside the process, I would not have access to the same insights and information I have as a scholar-practitioner.