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Social Mutualism As the Psychology of Alter-Cultural Praxis" (2015)

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Social Mutualism As the Psychology of Alter-Cultural Praxis University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Doctoral Dissertations University of Connecticut Graduate School 9-14-2015 Social Mutualism as the Psychology of Alter- cultural Praxis Fouad Bou Zeineddine University of Connecticut, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations Recommended Citation Bou Zeineddine, Fouad, "Social Mutualism as the Psychology of Alter-cultural Praxis" (2015). Doctoral Dissertations. 925. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/dissertations/925 Social Mutualism as the Psychology of Alter-cultural Praxis Fouad Bou Zeineddine, PhD University of Connecticut, 2015 Drawing from various social scientific literatures, this dissertation focuses on a set of activist communities I term alter-cultures. These groups are communities of practice whose aims and principles coincide in: a) rejecting for themselves (but not for others) significant aspects of dominant cultures and systems of living detrimental to a commons, and b) constructing manifest beneficial alternatives to these systems. Through qualitative and quantitative analyses and comparisons of the rhetoric, relational configurations, and behavioral approaches of different activist groups, I show that alter-cultures are organized to transcend traditional social identity boundaries, and adopt a unique relational model of social interaction (termed social mutualism) that is communal and care-based but neither exclusive nor localized. Social psychologically, I show that these communities are focused on the positive, are systematic, deliberative, holistic, and engaged in commons care for the benefit of themselves, others, and a commons. In contrast, more typical counter-dominant groups and activists are more focused on the negative, on agents, and are more emotional, and adversarial in their approaches to and psychology of collective action. Social Mutualism as the Psychology of Alter-cultural Praxis Fouad Bou Zeineddine B.A., Clark University, [2009] M.A., Clark University, [2010] M.A., University of Connecticut, [2013] A Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Connecticut [2015] i Copyright by Fouad Bou Zeineddine [2015] ii APPROVAL PAGE Doctor of Philosophy Dissertation Social Mutualism as the Psychology of Alter-cultural Praxis Presented by Fouad Bou Zeineddine, B.A., M.A., M.A. Major Advisor ___________________________________________________________________ Felicia Pratto Associate Advisor ___________________________________________________________________ Colin W. Leach Associate Advisor ___________________________________________________________________ Adam Sheya University of Connecticut [2015] iii Table of Contents Chapter 1: Introducing social mutualism and alter-culture p. 3 Chapter 2: Mutualism in permaculture and Baha’i activist networks’ discourses p. 16 Chapter 3: Mutualism, cooperation, competition, and avoidance p. 58 in the online rhetorics of collective action Chapter 4: Adversaries, eclecticism, and mutualism in Athenians’ anti-austerity action p. 85 support Chapter 5: General discussion p. 105 References p. 110 Appendix 2 – Interview Schedule p. 115 Appendix 2A – Permaculture and Baha’i Recruitment Networks p. 119 Appendix 2B – Permaculture and Baha’i Macropropositions p. 121 Appendix 3 - Alter-cultural Relations Beta RIOTScan Dictionary p. 140 Appendix 3A – Study 3.1 MANCOVA Results p. 142 Appendix 3B - Study 3.1 MG-MLM Results p. 146 Appendix 4 - Study 4.1 Measures p. 188 Appendix 4A - Study 4.1 Path Analysis Final Model p. 192 iv Chapter 1 The past decade has been marked by a diversification and proliferation of activist ideologies, movements, and social practices. Historically, there have been similar periods of radical cultural exploration, such as the rise of revolutionary and/or utopian ways of thinking and living (for examples, see Boggs, 1977; Stites, 1989). In both contemporary and historical cases, such experimentation in modes of living and working represents ‘prefigurative politics' (Boggs, 1977). Research on prefigurative politics emerged in the 1970’s from scholars of revolutionary, counter-cultural, and feminist movements, and addressed the unique and radical changes represented in the combination of creativity and counter-dominant thought and practice that these movements represented. In an age of growing populations, centralization, homogenization, production, and global communication and travel, it is perhaps natural that scholars came to focus on the counter-current, small-scale, and communal nature of prefigurative groups in the 1970’s. Contemporary examples such as the open-source/open-access and permaculture movements underlines how prefigurative politics remain relevant today, and how diverse the menu of collective action means and goals has become. They also show how prefigurative politics go beyond the small-scale, communal, competitively oriented counter-dominant groups that have typically been the focus in the study of prefigurative movements. I argue that prefigurative groups today also include large cosmopolitan movements and groups I call “alter-cultures,” which espouse and practice principles associated with a distinct social psychological basis for intergroup relations and collective action I call “social mutualism.” In this dissertation, I aim to provide preliminary evidence for this argument through qualitative 1 and quantitative analyses and comparisons of the rhetoric, relational configurations, and behavioral approaches of diverse activist groups. Social mutualism and alter-cultures Mutualism is a term I have borrowed from evolutionary ecology (for a review, see Bronstein, 1994). In that discipline, it describes mutually beneficial symbiotic relationships between species. Commensalism is another symbiotic variant in which one species benefits, while the other experiences no loss or harm. Together these relational models are termed “symbiotic facilitation.” The facilitation symbiotic model, as its name suggests, tends to have positive emergent effects on the local ecology. In the context of this research, I define social mutualism as a social-relational model of indirect facilitation. In such a relational model, one individual or group relates with the world through perceptions, beliefs, practices, and modes of living that simultaneously benefit both the group and the local and a commons. This relational model does not require any direct benefit or harm to other agents in the commons or reciprocation by such agents. The benefit to the commons indirectly benefits other people in it, while directly benefiting the agent group or individual. In this sense, social mutualism cannot be described as any form of competition, or even as (commensal or reciprocal) altruism. Cooperation is not adequate to describe alter-cultures and their practices either. To take an example from nature, vine orchids do not directly harm or benefit their host trees; and the host tree species does not always form an active and ongoing symbiosis with the orchid species. Nonetheless, in attracting other organisms to the vicinity (increasing biodiversity), orchids thrive themselves, and improve overall microbiome health, benefiting the trees indirectly in a variety of ways (e.g., increasing the fertility of the earth around the trees). 2 Alter-cultures operate in a similar way. They choose to directly satisfy collective needs through such a means as to diversify and enrich a local, and less directly, a wider commons. Simultaneously, alter-cultures teach and model this approach for others, both as means of self-empowerment for these others, as human/social capital for themselves, and through tangible evidence of commons benefits, as a broader public good. Thus, whether the decision is conscious or a natural concomitant of selected tactics within the mutualist strategy, alter-cultures implicitly or explicitly reject competition over the shape of the top levels of social hierarchies and systems as a means of need-fulfillment. Let us take as a case the open-source/open-access movement. Here is a community of communities, scattered throughout the four corners of the world, of people who object to the global issue of the commercialization and politicization of intellectual property, but not necessarily opposed to the notion of intellectual property itself. For many who were shut out of information/technological advances due to material, political, or cultural constraints, there was no realistic and effective way of challenging the established system and achieving short- term payoffs. So, online communities leveraged the power they had – not force, social influence over wider societies and policy-makers, descriptive norms, or money - but the knowledge pool, injunctive normative influence, and social power inherent in a large, diverse, collaborating network of communities, working in ways that are mutually beneficial to them and to the wider society. Collaborations between governmental and non-governmental programmers, developers, designers, academics, citizen activists, and a multitude of others across the world produced such tools as Firefox, R, and Tor, to name a few familiar products. Rather than attempting to reform, defeat, or replace globalized capitalist culture and praxis, this movement has simply provided an alternative within a niche of its own construction. Thus, the term “alter-culture”. 3 The movement is leading to wider adoption of open-source and creative commons principles and concrete
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