Embodied Activism Chapter One

2024

Capitalism / Coloniality depends upon the normalization of racialized, hetero-patriarchal, binary ideologies forged in the structural violences of hierarchy that limit access to all that is necessary to create well-being as individuals and as collectives. The way that knowledge is created, the categories and compartmentalizations required divide what is considered knowledge from that which is considered myth, gossip, backwards, worthless, cultural anachronism, etc. This implies the devaluation of all knowledge and practice that is not euro-capital-colonial-centric. The imposition of such epistemiology requires decades and generations of indoctrination, violence and dispossession to achieve. This workshop is focused on privileging and strengthening the practices and methods used to create, value and recognize the experience / knowledge that is created through the lives and histories of people whose access to their own realities have been undermined by myriad forms of oppression, negation and gaslighting. We will look at how the persistent relationships among people, territory and non-human others have been devalued in Capitalist / Colonial systems and as such leaving the very existence of all life in peril. On the other hand, the persistence of relationships as relationality, comunalidad, and non-capitalist economic systems have also been the first-line of resistance, perseverance and creation of other ways of doing and being life. As scholars and activists we have a responsibility to break away from hierarchical structures of knowledge creation and practice while embracing the many forms of knowing and being that are the majority forms of existence. Let us come together in this seven-week workshop to dignify hidden and untold histories while creating futures that embrace flourishing. More info: https://cambalache.noblogs.org/post/2024/01/16/716/

Advaya's four-part Regenerative Activism 2022 series, run in collaboration with the Ulex Project and Gita Parihar, is exploring methods for Reclaiming Our Future in these uncertain times for our planet. During the second session in the series, the panellists inquired into the topic of Forging and Sustaining Vision.

Development Dialogue, 2006

For many policymakers and activists, social and political reality is imagined to be divided into two parts: disembodied, transcendental entities such as "globalisation", and their alleged embodied counterparts in the "local" and "particular". But such dualisms are subject to incessant collapse. Three different examples -- dam construction, "the economy" and science -- help to show how the dichotomies are built up and disintegrated. Using far-reaching political alliances to help keep constantly in view the processes through which the dualism between theory and practice is set up and instantiated may help middle-class activism better achieve its goals. This paper was written as a contribution to the 'What Next' project of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation.

Historical Materialism, 2005

This paper elaborates the fragility of the political subject. Under ideal circumstances, this subject will manifest itself whenever s/he, as a citizen, can express her/himself on foundational political issues that concern all members of society. This can be organized in a structured way by using the channels that have been installed to secure public scrutiny such as voting rights, advisory or mandatory plebiscite etc... When political freedoms are not available, the political subject can emerge spontaneously in a demonstration or revolution as the expression of a deeper undercurrent of discontent. However, a subtle threat to the rights of the political subject is present and growing, especially in democratic societies. There is a quasi-unnoticeable shift of political power, but not only from the citizen to the elected professional politician. The real risk is that ‘the political professionals’ are losing their own authority to small elites of non-elected administrators and technicians that have to reply to no-one. This threat is serious because it not only happens under the radar but it gives the citizen the illusion that (s)he is still in control. This paper discusses ways to restore, preserve and protect the political freedoms of citizens. After defining the authentically political and its concept, content and conditions I will suggest three ways to rectify the situation. First I propose to install systems to encourage genuine communication. Second, I argue to institutionalize a clear separation between the political and politics, to build a Berlin Wall so to speak, between whatever concerns the authentically political and the rest. This ‘rest’ concerns applications in the social, the economical and the environmental realm but will not be commented in this paper. Third I advocate the creation of a new kind of authentic leadership, educated and formed with the moral backgrounds, integrity, idealism and passion to act solely and directly with and on behalf of the political subject. The political professionals of today are then banned from these grounds to the practical realms of politics, i.e. to the task of organizing and executing the will of the political subject.