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Introduction- geographies of solidarity (Massey 2008) (5. A chain of…
Introduction- geographies of solidarity (Massey 2008)
Globalisation- the world is constantly and inevitably being made, small things as well as big ones. Challenges to the making of a globalised world, looking at attempts to address inequality between places. Problem of how to establish solidarity between different places and different struggles, such issues and campaigns raise questions of territory and flows. Always in process
Issues and campaigns arise out of a way in which the globalised world is currently organised and a desire to see it organised differently - working to change unequal connections
2. Another world is possible
An eruption of discontent
Protesters don't want to be homogenised, organised or pinned down into tidy categories, against neoliberal globalisation
Local struggle in Papua New Guinea. World bank loan to expand water services demanded privatiation, US corporation took it over. Bills raised, charges and local resistance took form, state emergency declared, water system contract cancelled
Zapitistas of 1994- resist the privatisation of land and property that would harm the social and economic life of the poorest hardest. Became a symbol of hope against free treade
Concerns are multiple: privatisation, patenting of knowledge, lack of economic democracy etc/.
Response arguing that big and powerful forces at work is difficult to change and they are inevitable. However they are products of human practices and negotiation
Local vs global?
How can you argue against the increasing interconnectedness of the world? Not the global the protests are against but this particular organisation of global interconnections and disconnection, a particular form of globalisation. at issue is this particular architecture of territory and flow
You are all localists failing to look at the bigger picture? however we experience globalisation through our daily lives, impact can be enriching, also disruptive. places are becoming all the same, loosing their uniqueness, an assault on the powerful emotional pull exerted by local forces. Global forces are produced on the ground in a whole range of local places
Many globalisers argue this is not a battle against a globalised world, but the way in which the world is being globalised?, global is located in the local and we were never isolated territories of flows and practices. What kind of wider flows do we want to be open to?
It is not the geographical form of thinds that is good or bad but a particular social form of things
3. Challenging connections
Taking a stand
Intervening in the way the world is currently made
Challenge some of the dominant more settled trajectories, these groups see themselves as relatively powerless in the normal run of things, central contest over who should have the power and how should it be distributed?
As consumers, almost all of us are implicated in some way or another in this neo-liberal globalisation, we go along with it. Campaigns see themselves as representing those who are not in a position of great power in the current situation
Responsibility is diffused, global nature of events
Principle of a world of no borders, a community of the world vs valuing the specificity of local places
The word free in free trade bolsters this principle, embodied in a geographical imagination of a world without borders, people should enter a country without difficulty vs the rights of territory and why it should be protected.
However a world free from borders would also make aboriginal people defenceless to multinational mining corporations
Politics of a particular situation is more important than territory or flow. Every place is unique, making it difficult to apply 'rules'
A case in point
Migration of health workers from a range of countries to the UK, vital to maternity and aids unit. Should these medical professionals be stopped from migrating
2 principles at stake: the right of individual people to migrate and 2. the need to address inequality between countries
Question of territory or flow? Flows making territories more unequal, each are involved in the formation of the other. Rather we should be thinking about processes- the formation of territories of building, changing and breaking of connections
Flow of nurses from Ghana to the UK strong, notion of perverse subsidy , to stop the flow is to limit basic human rights, argues for a change in the nature of those flows, increased cooperation between the two health systems- advocating solidarity in the face of inequality
Taking a stand involves carefully addressing a range of issues particular to each situation. How territories and flows form each other and try to change the way this happens
4. Global anti-capitalism
Flows and enclosures
Together new social movements intend to be global, linking protests around the world
Particular geographical imagination of solidarity, the tearing down of borders, emphasising the productivity of flows and interconnections
Space of flows is gradually becoming more powerful than a 'space of places'
Territories must be scrutinised and challenged
Privatisation of land or water provide a common term for many of the protest of these movements, process known as enclosure, tearing down fences is one of the most powerful symbols of resistance to enclosure
Some fences, such as those for public space need to be protected
Protesters challenge the claims of power of neo-liberal , its constant enclosures, its production of increasing inequality of exclusion from democratic participation and the despoliation of the planet
Protesters face a capitalism that appears to be everywhere. people seem to have forgotten there living within this current system , also a way of using something material, visible to carry a wider meaning
Different geography of solidarity- as a result of and through the remaking of flows between two places. Diversity of movements
Linking locals
How can these small groups link up , how can they share experiences?
Communication- to form larger movements, various technologies including media technologies have been vital
Alternative media does not be a constant bombardment to which the globalised world its but rather new imaginations, make known otherwise invisible experience and speak in the language of dreams. The internet has been vital to the organisation and spread of these movements
Talking is also vital to the development of these new social movements, great stress on face-to-face contact, led to he development of new kinds of meeting spaces. Many sessions are organised in ways to encourage participation- discuss what there up to- convergent spaces. Visas, vulnerability to particular groups
Central aim of many of the movements of global anti-capitalism is to challenge the enclosures of the powerful, solidarity built through linking local pressures, taking advantage of new communications technologies and constructing new kinds of meeting spaces
5. A chain of differences
Via Campesina- concerned with the problems of peasant and small farmers and localities in which they are set pg 18
Since NAFTA- subsidised US corn has undercut small Mexican producers
Making links between local places and struggles entails rejecting localism, accepting differences and facing up to potential conflicts of interest
At best, territory and flow can be mutually supportive, enabling both differences ad flows of mutual influence
Conclusion
Living in a globalised world can provide opportunities and challenges
The campaigns and proposals explored have attempted to confront some of the power relations through which human globalised is produced and the inequalities resulted
Each case involves specific challenges to and mobilisation of territory and flow, resulting in potential geographies of solidarity
achievements have been putting issues firmly on the political agenda, thinking about them in innovative ways and insisted on the possibility the world could be made otherwise