The Making Of Social Movements In Latin America

Identity, Strategy, And Democracy

Arturo Escobar, Sonia E Alvarez

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• eBook ISBN: 9780429975936
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This book, paying attention to the axes of identity, strategy, and democracy, grew out of the authors' shared and growing interest in contemporary social movements and the vast theoretical literature on these movements produced during the 1980s, particularly in Latin America and Western Europe.

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Introduction: Theory and Protest in Latin America Today

Arturo Escobar
Sonia E. Alvarez

Since the early 1980s, Latin America has seen, in the minds of many, its worst crisis of the century. In 1982, Mexico’s announcement that it could not meet its debt payment obligations unleashed the infamous “debt crisis.” What followed is well known by now: repeated attempts at economic stabilization and adjustment; “austerity” measures that quickly translated into rapidly declining living standards for popular and middle classes; industrial decline in the wake of the adoption of strong neoliberal and free market economic policies, even negative growth rates in some countries—in sum, a “reversal of development.” And the social and political implications of these changes were no less onerous and menacing. Social exclusion and violence of all kinds significantly increased. “Transitions to democracy” begun during the first half of the decade became more and more difficult to achieve and increasingly limited in scope as the decade progressed. Even nature seemed to have taken issue with the region, as tornados, volcanos, earthquakes, and, more recently, the resurgence of cholera brought on the region more than its usual share of nature-related but socially aggravated hardships.

In the midst of all this, one might be surprised to find any significant degree of struggle and organizing on the people’s part. On the contrary, one might expect the population to be so overwhelmed by the tasks of daily survival and so fragmented and downtrodden by the intensified exclusion, exploitation, and, in many cases, repression that it would be practically impossible for people to find the time or energy to mobilize and fight for a better life. At best, one would expect to find spontaneous manifestations of popular rage and frustration, such as the so-called International Monetary Fund (IMF) riots witnessed in Santo Domingo or Caracas, among other places. But even this would seem to corroborate the fact that people were more or less quiescent in their daily lives, exploding only when they could not take it anymore. After all, the 1960s, the decade when both development and revolution had reached their height, had been left well behind. The 1980s was another story altogether, clearly inimical to people’s efforts at organizing for change. Yet despite all this, what one found in practically every country of the region was an impassioned experience of resistance and collective struggle on many fronts, even if less visible than in former decades and, at times, submerged.

It was the richness, novelty, and variety of this experience that motivated us to write this book. Popular mobilization by no means disappeared during the 1980s, and it is unlikely that it will in the 1990s. Indeed, the mosaic of forms of collective action is so diverse that one even doubts whether a single label can encompass them all. From squatters to ecologists, from popular kitchens in poor urban neighborhoods to Socialist feminist groups, from human rights and defense of life mobilizations to gay and lesbian coalitions, the spectrum of Latin American collective action covers a broad range. It includes, as well, the movements of black and indigenous peoples; new modalities of workers’ cooperatives and peasant struggles; middle- and lower-middle-class civic movements; the defense of the rain forest; and even cultural manifestations embodied, for instance, in Afro-Caribbean musical forms (such as salsa and reggae) and incipient antinuclear protest in some countries. This rich mosaic of identities is at the heart of our project. Clearly, it represents a changed social, cultural, economic, and political reality in the continent.

Generally speaking, this book is concerned with the nature of resistance and social change in contemporary Latin America. This is an old question, some might say. But the 1980s witnessed the appearance of new forms of understanding and discussion on resistance and social change that marked a significant discontinuity with past forms of analysis. These new forms of theoretical awareness have been fostered by equally significant changes in historical conditions and, more specifically, by changes in the popular practices of resistance and collective action themselves. Critical reflection in the region has recognized the questionable and limited character of the approaches widely accepted until the 1960s and 1970s— namely, functionalism and Marxism. But, more importantly, it has embarked on a systematic effort at renewing our understanding of the complex processes that account for the evolution of Latin American societies today.

This process of theoretical renewal has centered around the nature of social movements to such an extent that a veritable explosion of writings on this topic has occurred, particularly since the early 1980s. And the character of these writings has been continuously changing. During the first years of the past decade, many collective forms of protest, especially in urban areas, were characterized in an undifferentiated manner as “new social movements” (NSMs). NSMs were believed to give expression to “new popular interests,” to practice “new ways of doing politics,” and even to embody the possibility of creating a “new hegemony by the masses.”¹ Highly optimistic assessments of these movements and their actual or potential contributions to radical social change appeared in increasing numbers in social science journals and alternative newspapers throughout much of the region. In most analyses, the catchall concept of NSMs lumped ecclesiastical base communities and urban protest of various kinds together with ethnic movements and primarily middle-class ecology, feminist, and gay liberation movements. All of these movements, some theorists insisted, challenged the state’s economic and political models and called into question authoritarian and hierarchical ways of doing politics.

This optimism was tempered in the second half of the decade as some of the movements declined, even in the context of democratic consolidation, as in Southern Cone countries (Mainwaring 1987; Cardoso 1987; Canel, Chapter 15). Some studies in these countries painted a sobering picture, suggesting that NSMs were unable to move from the confrontational tactics of the transition period to the strategies of negotiation and compromise necessitated by the new democratic status quo. A certain pessimism thus set in. More recent studies, however, have systematically investigated what has happened to social movements beyond the transition period or, more generally, how they have fared in relation to the economic, social, and political crisis of the 1980s. These studies have opened up new questions, many of which we pursue in this anthology.

Also in the second half of the 1980s, continuities between old and new practices and structural determinants began to be recognized (Mires 1987) as a step toward reassessing the “newness” of the movements. At the same time, the use of European theories was more thoroughly examined (Calderón 1986), and empirical studies were more systematically conducted and evaluated.² Although these developments did not result in a clearly defined “paradigm” or research program, they did advance and transform significantly the state of the field, making it possible to launch a new wave of research and theorizing for the 1990s.

The most recent literature on social movements takes for granted the fact that a significant transformation has occurred in both reality and its forms of analysis. The “old” is characterized by analysis couched in terms of modernization and dependency; by definitions of politics anchored in traditional actors who struggled for the control of the state, particularly the working class and revolutionary vanguards; and by a view of society as an entity composed of more or less immutable structures and class relations that only great changes (large-scale development schemes or revolutionary upheavals) could significantly alter. In contrast, the new theories see contemporary social movements as bringing about a fundamental transformation in the nature of political practice and theorizing itself. According to these theorists, an era that was characterized by the division of the political space into two clearly demarcated camps (the bourgeoisie and the proletariat) is being left behind. In the new situation, a multiplicity of social actors establish their presence and spheres of autonomy in a fragmented social and political space. Society itself is largely shaped by the plurality of these struggles and the vision of those involved in the new social movements.

Whatever one might think of these claims, the clearest indication of the need for continued research on social movements is the persistence of multiple forms of collective mobilization in the continent. These manifestations indicate great complexity not only at the level of the actors but, as the following chapters will amply demonstrate, also in terms of modes of organization and action, causes and goals of the struggle, magnitude and composition of the forces, relation to political parties and the state, and so forth. As Calderón, Piscitelli, and Reyna argue in Chapter 2, a significant change has taken place in the structure of collective action. What is important to emphasize at present is that these collective manifestations are found in all countries of the region—in varying political regimes, “levels of development,” cultural contexts, and traditions of protest.

If a point of origin for the current wave of protest forms and styles were to be assigned, we would have to say that they emerged out of the historical conjuncture that started to coalesce in the late 1960s and has since branched out in a number of directions. The two factors most commonly cited in this regard are (1) the crisis of development in most of the region, particularly that in the development talist/populist state in Mexico and South America and the oligarchic state in Central America (with a related strengthening of the national security state in South America and of counterinsurgency regimes in Central America) and (2) the crisis of political parties and mechanisms of representation on all sides of the spectrum, from traditional parties in most countries to leftist parties and 1960s-style guerrilla groups.

The 1980s saw the deepening of some of these features and the appearance of others. The debt crisis is best seen as the reflection of the debacle of the post–World War II development model, based on rapid industrialization, the technological transformation of agriculture, and cultural modernization (in the sense of adopting a rational, scientific, and secular approach to social life). As the 1990s advance, it is becoming increasingly clear that a restructuring of economic conditions is taking place across the world, based on high technology in electronics and information and on the selective incorporation of countries and even regions within countries to the exclusion of others.³ Amid these ominous changes, the presence and the struggles of social movements continue to be important factors. Moreover, they embody a transformative potential in at least two dimensions: first, the widening of “sociopolitical citizenship,” linked to peoples’ struggles for social recognition of their existence and for political spaces of expression, and second, the transformation or appropriation by the actors of the cultural field through their search for a collective identity and the affirmation of their difference and specificity (Jelin 1990). Both of these dimensions will be documented and discussed in this anthology.

To refer to social movements in terms of “collective identities” represents a new trend and a new way of thinking. Social action is understood as the product of complex social processes in which structure and agency interact in manifold ways and in which actors produce meanings, negotiate, and make decisions. Generally speaking, social movements are seen to be engaged in a significant “political struggle in terms of access to the mechanisms of power but also [a] cultural [struggle] in the search for different identities” (Jelin 1990: 206). Our anthology is an attempt to capture and explore the significance of this regionwide trend along three main axes, broadly defined in terms of identity, strategy, and democracy. For this last criterion, what must be assessed is the impact of social movements on the democratization of cultural, social, economic, and political life; this is especially important with regard to the terrain of “daily life” because it is at this level, our authors contend, that many of today’s forms of protest emerge and exert their action and influence.

In terms of strategy, it is important to convey the range of tactics, strategic initiatives, and forms of political organization developed by collective actors in their struggles, especially those that deviate from conventional ways of doing politics. The range of these forms, once again, is vast, from those practiced by small women’s organizations to those adopted by movement-inspired political party coalitions such as the Partido dos Trabalhadores (Brazilian Workers’ Party, PT) or the M–19/Democratic Alliance in Colombia. In some cases, strategies have shifted from resistance to protest and from protest to proposal, without implying any linear movement from one to another of these forms but rather suggesting their coexistence and mutual feedback (Fals Borda, Chapter 17). The question of strategy, of course, is intimately linked to how social actors construct a collective identity for themselves, often out of conflictual roles and positions. This is our final axis of analysis.

Trends in Latin American Social Movements Theory and Research

Research and theorizing on social movements have become central issues in the Latin American social sciences landscape. How existing European and North American theories have influenced work in Latin America and, conversely, how Latin American intellectual production parallels or deviates from them, modifies them, or develops its own autonomous frameworks and concepts are questions that are discussed in some of the chapters that follow.

Jean Cohen's (1985) distinction regarding social movements theories—differentiating those concerned with strategy and those centered on the notion of identity—is already well established. Resource mobilization theories, which make up the first group, dominate in the Anglo-Saxon world and highlight questions of strategy, participation, organization, rationality, expectations, interests, and the like.⁴ The identity-centered theories, dominant in continental Europe and Latin America, emphasize the processes by which social actors constitute collective identities as a means to create democratic spaces for more autonomous action. Referred to by some as the “new social movements approach,” this school can be situated generally within poststructuralist and post-Marxist trends of growing importance since the 1970s. Some are also influenced by theories of postmodernism.⁵

Analyses of Latin American social movements by North American scholars have been relatively neglectful of Latin American contributions along the lines of the “new social movements approach.”⁶ The paucity of literature in English in this area is striking. Two important exceptions are the collections by David Slater (1985a) and Elizabeth Jelin (1990). Although Slater’s book was very important for those making their first forays into the field in the English-speaking world, its contributions were constrained by the incipient stage of theorizing and, as we mentioned, by the somewhat uncritical optimism of the period. Like much of her work, Jelin’s book is a welcome addition to the literature, even if focused only on women’s forms of collective action and primarily conceived within the identity-centered conceptual framework. The significance of this last qualification derives from the more recent observation that the Latin American researchers’ neglect of the concerns addressed by resource mobilization approaches has been costly in terms of understanding the concrete practices, constraints, and possibilities of the movements. Not only have “new identities” been celebrated prematurely, the presence of old features within them has also been overlooked. A sort of “cross-pollination” of research—between identity-centered and resource mobilization approaches, quantitive and qualitative methods, endogenous and external theories—is deemed necessary (Alvarez 1989b; Starn, Chapter 6).

A recent and valuable collection of essays entitled Popular Movements and Political Change in Mexico, edited by Joe Foweraker and Ann L. Craig (1990), moved in this direction. The collection was explicitly concerned with “the interaction of popular movements and the political system” (Foweraker 1990: 3), paying special attention to the political organization and strategic initiatives of the movements and to the movements’ impact on state institutions, laws, and practices. Questions of identity, political culture, and consciousness were given less attention, perhaps, as the concluding chapter (Craig 1990) suggested, because of the political rather than ethnographic orientation of the majority of the authors. Craig’s open question of “how are we to describe these collective identities and track processes by which they are formed” (1990: 283) is given central importance in our anthology. And though the contributors to the Mexican collection high-lighted processes of interaction with the state as one of the most immediate and important sources of popular identities, our contributors cover a broad range of identity-defining factors. One important reason for this difference is that the Mexican collection focused on more strictly defined popular actors (peasants, workers, and low-income urban residents), which are covered in an unusually rich and insightful manner; it left aside other movements in which the questions of identity formation can also be fruitfully investigated, such as ecology, feminist, gay, and indigenous peoples’ movements, all of which are represented in the present anthology.

One final issue that should be addressed before we provide brief introductions to the following chapters is that of determining what constitutes a “social movement.” This is by no means a simple question. Alain Touraine, whose work has been among the most influential in Latin America, showed the complexity at hand when he asserted that “most of all, the empiricist illusion must be clearly rejected: It is impossible to define an object of study called ‘Social movements’ without first selecting a general mode of analysis of social life on the basis of which a category of facts called social movements can be constituted” (1988a: 63). Similarly, Ruth Cardoso warned that often “movements form a unity only when we look at them from the outside searching for similarities. If we prioritize their differences, they cease to form a uniform object, showing their fragmentation” (1987: 32). Elizabeth Jelin pointed in the same direction when she stated that

it is the researcher who proposes the reading of a set of practices as a social movement. … Social movements are objects constructed by the researcher, which do not necessarily coincide with the empirical form of collective action. Seen from the outside, they may present a certain degree of unity, but internally they are always heterogeneous, diverse (1986: 22).

What all this means is that the definition of what counts as a “social movement” involves a complex epistemological process. It is therefore not surprising that few scholars have actually ventured a definition; some even believe that the whole idea of a “social movement” as a description of collective action should be abandoned because it traps our language in conceptual traditions that have to be discarded (Melucci 1985). Touraine’s system of classification of forms of collective action (1988a: 63–70) is well known and has been applied by some in ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Preface and Acknowledgments
• About the Editors and Contributors
• 1 Introduction: Theory and Protest in Latin America Today
• Part 1 Conceptualizing Social Movements in Contemporary Latin America
• Part 2 The Making of Collective Identities
• Part 3 Articulating Strategies and Democratizing Democracy
• List of Acronyms
• Bibliography
• About the Book
• About the Series
• Index