Dynamics of Dissent

Theorizing Movements for Inclusive Futures

John Clammer, Meera Chakravorty, Marcus Bussey, Tanmayee Banerjee

• Publisher: Routledge India
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781000044003
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Democracia

This book analyses dissent and its manifestations in movements of social and political transformation across communities and cultures. It shows how these movements create ruptures in the structures of power, and social hierarchy; expressed through songs, slogans, poetry and performances. The chapters in the book explore these sites of transgression and the imprint they leave on culture, politics, beliefs and the collective society – via music and poetry as in the Bhakti movement or through feministic theories born in post-World War Europe. It also explores how these dynamic movements generate alternate spaces within which the self, identity and collective purpose take new forms and find new meanings as they travel.

This book will be of interest to students and scholars of the humanities, literature, history, sociology, politics and culture studies.

1

Introduction

The dynamics of dissent: theorizing movements for inclusive futures

John Clammer, MeeraChakravorty, MarcusBusseyand Tanmayee Banerjee

The subject of social movements has long been a major sociological (and indeed historical) specialism. Intensive debate has engaged with issues such as the origins of social movements, their social composition, their relationship to utopian movements and literature, to intentional communities such as communes, to development patterns in the global South, to resistance and revolutionary activities and to internal factors in the success or failure of social movements, such as their ability to mobilize resources, to communicate their message to a mass audience and to fend off challenges to their legitimacy. A bibliography of social movements would now stretch to many thousands of volumes and articles. So, one might assume by now that the subject was somewhat exhausted, and that all the major theoretical questions had been answered. But a quick glance at the social landscapes around us shows that this is far from the case, and for a number of significant reasons. New movements constantly arise in response to new situations, environmental, social and political; old movements may fade away or revitalize themselves; new patterns of protest emerge as technology enables new forms of communication and mobilization. Even fifty years ago it would have been hard to image a global environmental movement emerging in the way in which it has in response to the massive ecological damage, pollution, species loss and habitat destruction that has been the result of the practices of both extractive forms of capitalism and socialism. The anti-nuclear movement could hardly exist were it not for both the development (and deployment) of nuclear weapons and of the increasing use of nuclear energy for “peaceful” purposes (despite its enormous costs and risks). Trades unions, once a major feature of the social and political life of most industrial societies have almost universally faded in significance, political clout and membership. Religion, which was in the not such distant past assumed by secularization theorists to be on the way out, has proved to have immense staying power and re-emerges constantly as a social force whether in the form of Islamic, Hindu, Christian or Jewish fundamentalism: in the numerous and flourishing “guru” cults of contemporary India, as revivalist movements as with Christian Pentecostalism or “Mega-churches”, or simply in the popularity of many forms of “spirituality”, even or especially among those who do not regard themselves as “religious” in any conventional sense.

At the same time, the “enabling environment” has also changed, suggesting new theoretical challenges for social movement scholars. The Internet has enabled forms of mass communication and mobilization un-thought of a generation ago, as has the mobile phone. Such now largely extinct forms of technology as the fax machine have played a major role in earlier mobilizations. Similarly, the larger political environment has changed radically, and the age of revolutions seems to have at least temporarily passed. Cuba, Vietnam, China and even the Soviet Union may still provide models for some, but realistically in a world now dominated by the forces of globalization unleashed by neo-liberal capitalism (into which even societies like China have bought in a big way), those old classically socialist models have little if any mileage left in them. Indeed, it has become protests against globalization itself that now shape the landscape of social movements (Starr 2000), while older forms of social movements such as feminism have found that their targets are moving ones: whereas at one time struggle may have been for the vote or for equal pay and working conditions, increasingly now the feminist movement is engaged with ecology, with issues of social exclusion based on race or sexuality, and with access to education and the social and political resources that should be in principle accessible by everyone.

Yet for all its extensiveness, social movement theory has its weaknesses and blind spots. In mainstream social movement, scholarship religion for example is pushed to the margins (it becomes instead the specialism of such fields as the sociology of religion). To a large extent, so have art movements, whether more formally recognized ones (in art historical terms) such as Surrealism or Expressionism, or in popular forms such as the many indigenous theatre groups of historical and contemporary India. Yet in practice such cultural movements have often been at the forefront of social transformation, political struggles or the maintaining of revolutionary enthusiasm in the periods of routinization that typically follow periods of enthusiastic social and political upheaval: for example, the Ägitprop theatre and dance troupes of post-revolutionary Russia, or the activist Left in Weimar Republic Germany, or the remarkable poster art of post-revolutionary and contemporary Cuba (Cushing 2003). Furthermore, much conventional social movements analysis has focused more on the internal dynamics and resource mobilization capacities of such movements, rather than on their transformative potential itself. This is disappointing, not least because virtually every social movement, by definition, sees itself as transformative and as re-shaping the future, usually along positive lines (although there can obviously also be reactionary movements as well). The distinctiveness of this book is that, while it also examines the dynamics of social movements, it draws attention equally to their potential as ones that are openly devoted to what we have here called inclusive futures – ones that specifically orientate themselves to cultural, social and gender inclusion and equally avoid the forces of exclusion that can be so characteristic of even “progressive” movements.

Framing social movements

Social movements, while they may be geographically separated and addressing separate issues, nevertheless communicate with one another, not only through members who may be associated with more than one movement, but also by learning from one another, comparing strategies and recognizing “mistakes” or strategic missteps made by others which can then be avoided in future scenarios. For this reason, while it is essential that we study individual movements across space and time with respect to their specific contexts and goals, it is also imperative that we gather a comprehensive idea of movements in more general terms – studying them not as separate unconnected agitations mobilized in different corners of the world at different times and instigated by disparate issues, but also as an interconnected chain, each affecting and nourishing the others, and in turn influencing the situation in which they collectively operate. For example, current movements that have an obvious “futuristic” quotient are those which deal with environmental concerns, not only because of the seriousness of such problems, but equally because, despite the severity of the environmental crisis and its long-term and negative impact on every individual on the planet, such movements still mobilize only a small population across the globe. Despite a vibrant presence in social media and via other publicity outlets and an active presence in academia in terms of research and publications, they have yet to mobilize a mass movement against the forces that cause warming and climate change. Here is a key situation in which inclusivity is urgently needed, especially in terms of drawing a much larger range of people into awareness and activism.

Movements are by their very nature future oriented, and have often been more than allies in the pursuit of positive social change, but actually the cutting edge of such change – cultural, social or political. At the very least, they have stimulated and embodied aspirations towards a more just and equal future, and while there have no doubt been apparent “failures”, in historical terms, it is often difficult to judge any particular movement in these terms. For example the Indian independence movement led by Mahatma Gandhi was not simply a movement against colonialism, but was, and still is in many respects, a continuing movement challenging discrimination based on caste, gender and work practices, was committed, as are many other social movements to non-violence, something that has had a profound influence on other social movements in India and beyond (Zunes, Kurtz and Asher 1999). While it is not directly an environmental movement, it has had effects on both environmentalism and ideas of alternative and sustainable economies through the work of Gandhian economists such as the neglected J.C. Kumarappa. As a movement for inclusivity, it can hardly be matched, both historically and in its longer-term impact: it is still a force far from spent. Similar comments could be made about the anti-apartheid movement so associated with Nelson Mandela in South Africa, or that led by Martin Luther King against racial discrimination in the United States, both of which have had profound influence far beyond their points of origin.

Collectively, movements can be thought of as praxis – the unity of theory and practice, oriented towards the future, and as both experiments in actually creating social change, and as sources of inspiration and aspiration to plant and concretize the idea of the possibility of change in the minds of people. And there is an important feedback loop or learning mechanism built into the history of social and emancipatory movements, illustrated, for example, by the Gandhian emphasis on non- violence. Experience has shown that violence is indeed counter-productive – a cause of existential anxiety, the uprooting of settled habitats and ways of life and livelihood – and, this being the case, for movements to be effective, they must aim for inclusivity, the bringing together of diverse people and opinions without imposing any one culture or lifestyle. In other words, that they should be both life-enhancing and facilitators of positive interactions that themselves generate yet further synergies. Indeed, history shows clearly that effective movements may not only serve a limited space, time and situation, but can resonate across much wider contexts, even when a movement does begin as a local one, addressing a local and concrete social situation. For example, Dr. Denis Mukwege was almost single-handedly responsible for initiating a “silent movement” in Kivu (Democratic Republic of Congo) against the epidemic of rape by members of rival tribes fighting each other for control of the extensive mineral resources of the region. This “local” issue has now become an international one. In the Congo situation (and parallels can be found elsewhere in Africa and beyond), rape is used as a weapon of war, by attacking rival villages, sexually assaulting women and mutilating their genitals in order to prevent them from having children, thus destroying the social fabric of the villages, upsetting normal demographic patterns and introducing violent trauma into the lives of those targeted. Mukwege’s report to the UN Human Rights Commission (issued in March 2015 by the then Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon) has both universalized a local site of atrocity and become the basis for the mobilization of a women’s struggle as it is recognized that they must be the harbingers of change in a deeply patriarchal and violent social situation.

In an entirely different social, cultural and historical context, the Bhakti movement in India – a spiritual/cultural and strongly egalitarian and non-hierarchical movement of saints, poets and musicians that flourished from around the 7th century AD to the 17th century (Ramanujan 1973) and which still exists in the form of both reform movements within Hinduism and Sufi expressions of Islam and in local musical and performative traditions, particularly in north and west India (Hess 2016) – provides a very contrasting model. The movement historically brought together anti-caste and non-Brahmin Hindus, Sufis, Bauls and Vachana wayfarers to critique and influence society, and who continue to do so through non-textual, non-academic, primarily spiritual means to promote equality, gender-justice and free access to religious sites and resources on the part of all in a deeply stratified society. The Bhakti movement still resonates in contemporary India and beyond through its poetry, music and critique of the hegemony of the religious and political ruling elites of its time. Indeed, the leading Indian public intellectual Shiv Visvanathan has argued that “Let us face it, the great reform movements in India were not the modernist, communist, socialist or liberal democratic ones. The great reform movement was the bhakti tradition. Nanak, Kabir and Mirabai did more to dent caste than The Communist Manifesto” (Visvanathan 2016: 31).

The notion of hegemony and its critique is important here, since, as any social constructivist knows, society is something that we have created, and so can change. The world of human actions and sense making (meaning construction) only functions insofar as we all agree to its terms. We are all of necessity complicit in this in one way or another because our identities are invested in a certain sense of order – a particular culture, social structure or world view. So, at the risk of stating the obvious, the social is ultimately a cooperative space. Consent is the key to this arena of human sociality. Yet dissent is an important element in the maintenance of our world(s) too, because it is the lever through which change is manifest. We hence find two kinds of energy at work here: the centripetal and consensual which draws us to the centre of a civilizational project, and the centrifugal and dissident which throws us against the walls of consent in an attempt to move beyond current practices, norms and values. This “throwness” is dynamic and subversive. It draws on the same energy as the social and consensual, yet puts its dynamism at the service of freedom.

In this book, the contributors explore the nature of change and of movements that inspire change by probing dissent and its dynamic properties in the cultural, social and personal spheres of human experience. Here, and this is a distinctive characteristic of the volume, song, poetry, dance and spirit intersect with political movements seeking to enact change for women, the environment and the subaltern. How dissent functions to generate change and how it struggles with the abiding power of consent, and the ability of those with power to manufacture consent, is at the heart of these inquiries. Change is a constant in life, yet most people feel that it is simply happening to them, and is largely out of their control. We must never forget, however, that it is always people who initiate change and unleash its creative possibilities in and on the world.

Given the systemic crisis that our planet now finds itself in (because of human actions), hope for the future must lie in our power of dissent, to cast off habitual readings of the everyday and to renew ourselves through creative interventions in the world. The tools for change are everywhere about us, waiting in the heterotopic coagulations that we inhabit as individuals and collectivities. As Harald Dehne once noted “By means of a creative activity of appropriation in their daily lives, individuals generate those prerequisites that enhance the potential to change everyday life – and ultimately society as well” (Dehne 1995: 137). Such movements towards change in the individual sphere hinge on having a language and consciousness to recognize and stimulate to action the creative possibilities inherent in almost any social context. In fact, it is often the context itself that presents itself to us in such a way as to expose its own “madness” and demand of us that we change it. Thus, consciousness is not itself something that simply arises from within, but, as all the major critical theorists have argued, springs from dialogue with the world we inhabit. Consciousness, in other words, is praxis based.

Timothy Morton makes this point when he argues that “one doesn’t act awareness, it happens to one. It seems to have its own kind of existence, from its own side. It is not something you manufacture” (Morton 2017: 186). Elise Boulding, that great exponent of peace building processes, actually sees this engagement as a craft, and that our capacity for dissent – the process of rejecting a given narrative, inequity or definition – is based on the reflective ability of people to redefine their own personhood through reflective action in the world. Hence: “Reflection is the key to the development of personhood. It is a tool in the crafting of a life. The crafting of human beings to become what they already are is fundamental to all other tasks – to education, to peace making, to the creation of a civic culture, to being able to love other human beings” (Boulding 1988: 163–4). The fascinating nexus of consent and dissent is the ground upon which consciousness of human potential and of the great richness available to us through our struggles, and through the relational joys of stepping beyond our cultural safe-havens, is based. Morton (2017) for instance argues for solidarity with “non-human peoples” as a pressing issue of our time. This solidarity, and its imaginative possibilities, is one that cannot be theorized in a vacuum. It emerges from our struggles, and from the creative principle that generates hope and empowers the human imagination to see beyond the given. This explains why it is the dissident that sits at the heart of the chapters of this book. This is also why the experience of dissent, as an embodied process of resistance, is a repeated motif. In another context, one of us has argued that: “the Universe is a Reality which is a purely Experiencing Principle, and as there being no other ingredient whatsoever, which does or can enter into the composition of the Universe, the process of the production or reproduction in the part of an Experiencing Principle by itself is incapable of having any other mea...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Notes on contributors
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Introduction: the dynamics of dissent: theorizing movements for inclusive futures
• 2 Conversations across abstractions: a silent movement by the poet-wayfarers
• 3 “What knowledge is this that an old woman understands better than a learned man?”: Hacking special knowledge in late medieval Europe, a provocation
• 4 Feministic theory and practice in Sweden and its impact on families, the labour market and legislation
• 5 Kabir Suman: the child and father of movements
• 6 Lotus and labrys: the role and legacy of a Buddhist young women’s movement and the young lesbian feminist movement in Wellington, New Zealand at the end of the millennium
• 7 Perspectives on Japan’s anti-nuclear movements: the effectiveness of social movements?
• 8 Ressentiment as false transcendence: how transformative dissenting political and social movements can create inclusivity
• 9 Song of the sawngs: transformation of a cultural protest and the role of nationalist politics
• 10 ‘We shall rise’: intimate theory and embodied dissent
• 11 Women in Black: a women’s peace movement
• 12 Afterword: inclusive futures and dissenting visions
• Index