In person icon Toward Emancipatory Praxis? Empirical Reflections of Organization Against Capitalist Oppression

Abstract

Social transformation, emancipation, and the issue of praxis in and beyond every-day resistance are some of the main motifs animating this panel. With three papers resulting from empirical studies in very different contexts,it covers a broad range of questions emerging from the researchers’ engagement with diverse movements of people resisting distinct expressions of crises and forms of (neoliberal) capitalism, in Africa, Europe, Latin America and the Middle East. From the dilution of human rights and self-determination to the brutal repression of those resisting their confiscation under neoliberal hegemony, diverse peoples’ movements have strategized and developed tactics to both counter immediate and objective attacks on their rights and their lives, and open ways towards alternative futures. These endeavors have achieved different levels of realization, faced serious setbacks or reproduced and reinforced the constraining parameters of the capitalist social reality that have also prevented their strategic emancipation from the sanctioned modes and horizons of struggle. Moara Crivelente’s paper grapples with the limitations found in a strategy of national liberation as the realization of self-determination in the form of human rights and peoples’ “right” to form nation-states. The paper focuses on protracted conflicts such as Palestine/Israel and Western Sahara/Morocco, with actors organizing as National Liberation Movements, as “civil society”, and as states under occupation and colonization, thus endeavoring to represent themselves, but under the restrictive terms enforced by the institutions of a capitalist international system, including international law. In Mónica Soares’ paper, we find an empirical discussion of autonomy as an antidote to hopelessness, with collaborative commons suggesting that alternative futures remain possible. It offers a comparative analysis of eight Iberian case studies on collaborative commons, and examines the political consequences of constructing utopia on autonomist principles and actions, highlighting both the potential and the limits of this approach. Finally, Jocelyn Maldonado Garay and Pablo Jiménez’s paper engages with the social revolt in Chile in October 2019, seen as a peak in the waves of post-dictatorial protests that had been exposing the deep structural inequalities and the exhaustion of neoliberalism established during the civil-military dictatorship. It addresses the role of the health brigades in these protests by analyzing their emergence, organization and the dynamics of their performance in the context of a revolt typical of the crisis of contemporary capitalism. Combined, these papers cover different levels of concern for emancipatory resistance under diverse forms of oppression, but identify a common nature in their critique of how capitalist social relations may be at least partially reproduced in these movements’ different modes of conceptualization of their action, bringing crucial problems to their strategy. All papers point to the complexities and contradictions of attempts to build worldwide multiformed resistances that challenge capitalist social realities, urging us to rethink the horizons and strategies of these diverse collective emancipatory struggles. By interrogating the limitations and possibilities of such forms of resistance, the panel illuminates the intricate balance between immediate action and long-term struggle, highlighting the tensions between reproducing aspects of the status quo and forging the potential for emancipatory change.

Title	Details
Health Brigades in the Chilean Social Revolt, a Case Study	View Paper Details
Utopia, Autonomy, and the Political: Reflections on Contemporary Challenges from an Iberian Study	View Paper Details
Emancipatory Diplomacy: Reclaiming Self-Determination in Contemporary National Liberation Struggles	View Paper Details