Latin America, from cosmopolitics to technopolitics
On September 18, 2013, the
Munduruku indians from the Brazilian Amazon sent a note of support to the
"struggle movements demonstrating in the streets." Since the
so-called "June Days", the massive riots that turned Brazilian
politics upside down, the country's streets were still in turmoil. The fight of
the Munduruku people received the support of the urban movements, and the Ipêrẽgayũ
Munduruku wrote back offering their solidarity: "We thank all the
movements which have been expressing their indignation in the streets, in all sectors
of society and in all the existing social classes."
While the Munduruku were fighting hydroelectric
power companies in their territory, a conjunction of urban struggles and
ancestral causes was turning the streets of Rio de Janeiro into a burgeoning of
syncretic symbols. In the demonstrations, you could see an activist Batman running
alongside a Korubo Indian, and indigenous feathers styling Anonymous Rio’s
profile. And the Aldeia Maracanã, the former Indian Museum the Brazilian government
wanted to pull down in order to build the Maracanã Stadium parking lot, became an
icon for the revolt in which young streamers coexisted with shamans from
various tribes. Cosmopolitics, a term used to define Yanomami leader Davi
Kopenawa’s world vision, became urban. And the digital network and empowered crowd-era
technopolitics made some unforeseen turns in Brazil as they were coloured with
ancestral worldviews.
The aim of the New Communication, Organization and Social
Aggregation Dynamics – Techno-political Reconfigurations research project, developed after a global call from
OXFAM, was to better understand the "new forms of citizen
participation" and "centre-less social processes" in Latin
America. Although the study paid special attention to digital social networks,
one of its main conclusions was that the ancestral Latin American collaborative DNA (the common good-oriented
systems, such as the Kichua Minga, the Náhuatl tequio and the Aymara ayni) and
some worldviews, such as the Buen Vivir (Good
Living or Living Well), coexist in the region with techno-political dynamics
and hacktivism.
Worldviews, cosmopolitics
Cosmopolitics, the view that interprets the
world outside of Western logic, is the emotional
backbone of many Latin American new-style movements. It is even the inspiration
for community organization for many groups which base their action on digital
tools and platforms. In Colombia, the Indigenous Minga that the indigenous
peoples of the Cauca Valley summoned in 2008 became the great political
reference for many urban youths. The Minga, so called in allusion to the Kichua
Minga collective mechanism, became a march that toured the whole country. For
many young people, this was "the main event that changed the ways of
organizing and undertaking social action." The coexistence of new actors
(National Wide Assembly – MANE, Anonymous profiles) with classic rural
movements during the agricultural strike of 2013 exemplifies some of these cosmopolitical/technopolitical
resonances, assembled in a de-colonial theorists’ trans-modernity that goes
beyond classical western frameworks.
On the other hand, the Good
Knowing/FLOK Society project in Ecuador generated an ample meeting space for
Latin American crypto-punks, global hackers, organizations and movements. Framed
in the Good Living paradigm, Good Knowing launched the challenge of achieving Ecuador’s
"second independence through free technologies" and a "digital
Pacha Mamá of common and open knowledge." Good Living and hacker ethics blended
in a project aiming at overcoming the extractivist economy through free, common
and open knowledge. Technopolitics merged with ancestral practices and
worldviews. Brazilian anthropologist Eduardo Viveiros de Castro talks about
Amerindian perspectivism, which "starts with a twice-reverse statement:
the other exists, therefore he thinks", a statement that works for hacker
ethics and the network culture, the real worldviews and/or world sensitivities for
our times. The symbolic evolution of the Good
Living crossbreeding with the hacker ethics, such as the Good Knowing and the
Good Resisting, come close to the trans-modernity formulated by Enrique Dussel:
"transcending western modernity (…) a multifaceted, hybrid , post-colonial,
pluralistic, tolerant trans-modernity, beyond liberal democracy and the modern
European state. "
Global inspiration
After the outburst of the 2011
revolts – Arab Spring, 15M, Occupy … – social actors and governments in Latin
America embraced denialism. The official version was: there were no networked
revolts in the region because the progressive governments had the support of
their people. Besides, it was argued that this was a déjà vu, for the historical struggles in Latin America were an
inspiration for the wave of revolts triggered by the Arab Spring. True: from Zapatismo to the Chilean students’
protests, Latin America has been a social beacon for the world. The findings of
the New Communication, Organization and
Social Aggregation Dynamics. Techno-political Reconfigurations study show,
however, that what happened at a global level in 2011 changed – to a large extent
– the social dynamics in Latin America. The networked nemesis of the frantic
planetary 2011 turned the Slut Walk in Toronto into the Marchas de las Putas in several countries, adapted the Spanish 15M
to Indignados Paraguay (among many
others), expanded the Occupy Wall Street imaginary, and imbued student movements
in the region with the ideas, methods and tools of Wikileaks, Anonymous or Real
Democracy Now.
At the same time, the new
architecture of the rallies and the protests, the hybrid space (Internet and
territories) as the interface for action, the emergence of new players, and the
liquid and ad hoc adherence to certain causes are shaping a new prototype of political
participation, creation and imagination in Latin America. A common pattern in
the region now is a time-intensive mobilization for a particular cause, with
strong symbolic disruptions and the creation of new spaces for aggregation. On
the other hand, feminism (#NiUnaMenos
in Argentina), digital freedom (#Pyrawebs in Paraguay, the fights against
Internet.org) and the defense of the urban commons (such as #tomaelbypass in Peru and #OcupeEstelita in Brazil) are still
active hubs. At the same time,
some uprisings, such as the March of the Torches, which began calling for the
resignation of Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández, led to the emergence
of a new political subject, the Indignados
de Honduras, featuring self-convening through social networks, self-organizing
and emotional empowerment. As happened also in the #JusticiaYa revolts in Guatemala, the fight against corruption in
Honduras is no longer in the hands of the neoliberal right. The popular classes
in Central America claim this fight as their own, raising US suspicion.
The OXFAM study also highlights the fact that political dichotomies and the antagonist
narrative generated by the progressive governments in Latin America, but also
by the opposition, is the main edge for technopolitics in the region. In most
cases, statist intervention disqualifying any revolt as "neoliberal"
or "rightist" can cause a depletion of the streets or a shifting to
the right of the demonstrations, as evidenced in Ecuador and Brazil.
Graph study Ayotzinapa´s case. http://demos.outliers.es/tecnopolitica/Ayotzinapa/
From Zapatism to Ayotzinapa
Is there an end of cycle for the Latin American left,
as Uruguayan journalist Raúl Zibechi warns? Does this mean that the neoliberal
right would return to power? What will be the impact of the sequence of
networked revolts in the region? The answer does not lie in mystifying the
legacy of the progressive bloc, as some leftist European media do. Nor does it
lie in criminalizing the bloc’s policies. The Latin American change of skin is
more subtle, complex and multifaceted. It is neither Bolivarian nor its
exact opposite. There is a new wave of
sensibilities and political practices in the region, despite the growing
polarization. In addition to the aforementioned outbursts and movements and the
cosmo-technopolitical synergies, the region is living intensely the emergence
of a new political subject that catches classic social organizations offside. In
some cases, it incorporates a new imaginary to these organizations.
The emergence of the #YoSoy132 movement in Mexico (2012), the #tomalacalle in Peru (2013), the #VemPraRua revolts in Brazil (2013) and #JusticiaYa in Guatemala (2015) confirms a pattern of
communication, action and self -an organization that goes beyond traditional
definitions and social structures. In most cases, these are networked movements
which evolve over time, mutate and even change names. The Technopolitics: the power of connected crowds study defines the phenomenon as a "distributed temporary
leadership", a definition that explains many of the mutations of the
Spanish 15M and the Mexican #YoSoy132, the structure of which "transforms
dynamically."
The rise of #YoSoy132 in Mexico was particularly
relevant for the region, as it perfectly symbolizes the continuity and
simultaneous breaking off the new movements generate. #YoSoy132, which feeds
non-linearly, symbolically and organizationally on Zapatism but breaks from it,
was not an isolated outburst. It wove a new social ecosystem that has evolved
over time. Some nodes in some particular action (the early #YoSoy132) link up with
new spaces (for example, #PosMeSalto
against rising tariffs). In this ecosystem, whoever temporarily leads an action
may not have participated in any action in the past.
When the 43 students from the Ayotzinapa Rural Teacher
Training School disappeared on the night of September 26, 2014, few expected
that, a year and a half on, Mexican and global networks would still be
demanding justice. Nor was it anticipated that this process would cause the
interaction of such diverse social ecosystems as Zapatism, the 1999 student
strike and #YoSoy132. The Ayotzinapa case was the meeting point for many
Mexican causes and for social movements in Latin America and the world. The
specific data study on the Ayotzinapa process, which analyzed dozens of
Twitter hashtags, comes to prove researcher Guiomar Rovira’s thesis: the outbursts
owe more to "syncs" than to solid ideological allegiances. #YoSoy132,
despite the efforts of those who claim that the movement died off, was key to establishing
the connection between disparate social ecosystems.
Transnacionalism,
transmodernity
During the Ayotzinapa indignation, the different
Mexican ecosystems interacted with the networks of global revolts, such as the
Spanish #15M, the protests in Brazil and Occupy Wall Street, through hashtags
such as #Caravana43 (in the United
States), #EuroCaravana43 (in Europe) and
#caravana43sudamérica. In turn,
Ayotzinapa connected global struggles and heterogeneous symbologies which had
emerged in different historical moments, as shown by Noam Chomsky’s support and that of Real Democracy in Spain. It is
interesting to note here the reciprocal identification of Ayotzinapa with #BlackLivesMatter.
Moreover, the Ayotzinapa case has left a deep impresssion in Latin America, where
it has produced momentary connections between different student movements. It
aroused support from such assorted movements as Yasunidos (Ecuador), the Madres
de Mayo (Argentina) and the fans of the Bolivian football team The
Strongest. However, despite the emotional empathy caused by the Ayotzinapa case
and the new connections stemming from other processes, it is too early to say
if it will have an impact on regional macropolitics, or if it will result in a
new movement or pan-American political paradigm. The same could be said of
outbursts such as #VemPraRua in Brazil and other revolts.
The global struggles sequence unlocked by the Arab
Spring began to blur western symbologies, frameworks, and fictions. As they hatched
in Latin America and coexisted with southern epistemologies, they also
interfered with some dichotomous narratives forged by local governments. The transnational
connection of these revolts is weaving a new world sense that goes beyond
global neo-liberalism and developmental statism, which put modern state as the epicenter.
This bordering, trans-modern knowledge connects the global South with the
precariat and other political subjects from the North, producing a new commons geopolitics. An unexpected rebound is this: Latin America's
progressive legacy has a new leakage point in Spanish municipalism, which has
won the main mayorships in the country. The Zapatista Good Government Juntas,
the Good Living and the Latin American Living Culture are today active political
lines at different levels in cities such as Madrid and Barcelona. Post global
capitalism could emerge from the recombination and synchronization of Latin
American and South European worldviews, sensitivities and practices – cosmopolitical
and technopolitical.