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Real Democracy in the Occupy Movement

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Real Democracy in the Occupy Movement NO STABLE GROUND: REAL DEMOCRACY IN THE OCCUPY MOVEMENT ANNA SZOLUCHA PhD Thesis Department of Sociology, Maynooth University November 2014 Head of Department: Prof. Mary Corcoran Supervisor: Dr Laurence Cox Rodzicom To my Parents ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis is an outcome of many joyous and creative (sometimes also puzzling) encounters that I shared with the participants of Occupy in Ireland and the San Francisco Bay Area. I am truly indebted to you for your unending generosity, ingenuity and determination; for taking the risks (for many of us, yet again) and continuing to fight and create. It is your voices and experiences that are central to me in these pages and I hope that you will find here something that touches a part of you, not in a nostalgic way, but as an impulse to act. First and foremost, I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Laurence Cox, whose unfaltering encouragement, assistance, advice and expert knowledge were invaluable for the successful completion of this research. He was always an enormously responsive and generous mentor and his critique helped sharpen this thesis in many ways. Thank you for being supportive also in so many other areas and for ushering me in to the complex world of activist research. I am also grateful to Eddie Yuen who helped me find my way around Oakland and introduced me to many Occupy participants – your help was priceless and I really enjoyed meeting you. I wanted to thank Prof. Szymon Wróbel for debates about philosophy and conversations about life as well as for his continuing support. A special acknowledgement to Dr Pauline Cullen, my second supervisor, whose comments helped improve the final draft of this thesis. To other members of the Department: Dr Eamonn Slater thank you for your comments on the chapter about aporias and all great conversations; Dr Rebecca King-O’Riain for her support at all stages of my PhD; Prof. Mary Corcoran for her help with the organisation of the viva examination; and Dr Mary P. Murphy, Dr Peter Murray, Dr Bora Isyar, Dr Cathal Coleman and Dr Barry Cannon with whom I collaborated at different times of my teaching work in the Department. I sincerely appreciate all teaching and learning opportunities provided by the Department. Thank you also to Martha Bergmann from the Oakland History Room and Pauline Murray from the NUIM Library for their help with tracing the story of the Oscar Grant Plaza; and to Alison and Sharon for their support in the final stages of this PhD. Thanks also to Trish from the office for her patience and kindness and to Éilís Murray from Graduate Studies for her advice and support. I would also like to thank my Examiners: Prof. John Holloway and Dr Michael Murray for their thorough reading of my thesis, their suggestions and remarks as well as the lively conversation about Occupy and direct democracy during my viva voce. This thesis was possible thanks to the financial support that I received from Maynooth University through the Doctoral Teaching Scholarship. A special thanks to my fellow PhD students in the Department, Jean, Asia, Clodagh, Terry, Niall, Kerry, Patricia, Ivan, John-Paul, Sarah, Dilyana, Deirdre, Maighread, Maria, Patrick, for sharing our kitchen moments, joys and frustrations. To all teachers and students in the CEESA PAR classes who were the first that rigorously tested my opinions about movements and education. To all students at the GSSR and people from LA in Warsaw, where this project began; to my Politics students, thank you for your trust – you (unknowingly) gave me the energy to keep moving this writing forward. I would also like to thank all my hosts and those who provided much needed shelter or refuge over the three years when this project unfolded. Jean, Ania and Piotrek, Cathal and Jim in Ireland as well as Eleanor, Karen, Justin and Ayal in the US, thanks for your amazing help. To Jean, for great chats by your fireplace; and to all friends at home, in Ireland and scattered in different corners of the world, for your moral support and memory. iii The greatest debt is, as always, owed to those closest to me. Mojej siostrze – Asieńce – jesteś dla mnie wzorem pracowitości i wytrwałości. Uczysz mnie tak wiele i dziękuję Ci za to! Mamie i Tacie dedykuję tę pracę. Innym dziękuję za poszczegóne rzeczy, a Wam – za wszystko. Dzięki za bycie takimi, jaką osobą ja też chciałabym być; za to, że uczycie się razem ze mną; za to, że zawsze mogę na Was liczyć i za to, że wiedzieliście od początku, jak zachować u mnie niezachwiany autorytet. Dzięki! Ania iv Table of contents ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS III SUMMARY IX INTRODUCTION 1 No stable ground 1 Thesis summary 4 Why this topic and why now? 6 Thesis structure 8 1. AT THE INTERSECTIONS OF A MOVEMENT, DEMOCRACY AND EMERGING LITERATURE: INTRODUCTION TO OCCUPY AND CONSENSUS DECISION-MAKING 13 Literature on Occupy: Main concerns 13 Literature on earlier movements and direct democracy 17 Occupy movement 20 Consensus 26 Consensus – advantages and disadvantages 28 What is Occupy? 32 2. HOW CAN WE EFFECT MEANINGFUL SOCIAL CHANGE? ON THE QUESTION OF FAILURE, SOCIAL MOVEMENT THEORY, AND OTHER THINGS THAT SHOULD BE SET ASIDE 33 Criteria for an effective analysis 34 Social movement theory and Occupy: a critical appraisal 38 Cluster 1: Uncertainty versus political opportunities and dynamics of contention 39 Political opportunities and the question of agency 40 Political opportunities, dynamics of contention and retrospective judgement 42 Structural theories and the state 46 Transgressive contention, movement society and the possibility of systemic change 47 Cluster 2: Where is the remainder? 49 Melucci, Touraine and the 99% 50 Structuralists and constructivists' troubles with complexity 52 Cluster 3: Failure(s) of the state 55 Autonomous tactics versus images of violence and movements’ weakness 56 What about the state? 58 How valid is canonical movement theory? 59 What does canonical social movement theory actually do, then? 60 v 3. WHAT IS IMPOSSIBLE IS REAL: DERRIDA, LACAN AND A QUEST FOR REAL DEMOCRACY 62 Jacques Derrida (1930-2004) 63 Jacques Lacan (1901-1981) 67 Cluster 1: Uncertainty and responsibility 71 Cluster 2: Remainders and complexity of movement situations 74 Cluster 3: Inherent failure of structures of governance 75 Derrida, Lacan and interdisciplinary research 77 4. SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN REALITY: APPROACHES AND METHODS OF MOVEMENT RESEARCH 80 Methods of data collection 81 Dimensions of participation 81 Data collection 82 Coding and analysis 83 Workshops 83 Interviews and fieldnotes 84 Suitability of research methods and possible limitations 85 Research approaches 86 The situation on the ground 87 Militant ethnography 88 What is militant ethnography and how did I use it? 90 Why use militant ethnography? 92 What were the challenges of militant ethnography? 92 Movement-relevant research 94 Anarchist anthropology and this research as a feasibility study of direct democracy 95 Counter-expertise 96 Main limitations and challenges of counter-expertise 97 Movement-relevant research 97 Movement-relevant versus formalised approaches to movement research 98 Participatory Action Research 99 What is Participatory Action Research? 102 Why and how did I use PAR? 102 What were the challenges of PAR in this project? 104 How did PAR in this project facilitate change? 108 Plan for the remaining part of the chapter 110 Researcher’s role 111 Researchers or activists? 114 My participant-researcher role in Occupy 114 Academic versus activist researchers 116 Combining the roles of a researcher and an activist 117 Degrees of researcher's involvement 118 vi Challenges of researcher's involvement 120 Systemic challenges 121 Researcher’s role post scriptum: the changing model of science 122 Ignorance as a practical condition of knowledge 124 Copernican principle 128 5. LEARNING CONSENSUS DECISION-MAKING IN OCCUPY: UNCERTAINTY, RESPONSIBILITY, COMMITMENT 131 A Brief History of Consensus in Occupy Dame Street 131 Learning Decision-Making in Occupy Dame Street 137 Learning and Responsibility 138 The facilitation group and the facets of responsibility 139 How does responsibility work? 143 Responsibility and uncertainty 144 The Problem of Commitment to Consensus 147 Lack of trust 149 Consensus versus diversity 150 Occupy – Acting in an Interstitial Space 151 6. LIVING REAL DEMOCRACY IN OCCUPY: FROM PREFIGURATIVE POLITICS TO LIVING TEMPORALITIES 155 Real, ideal or prefigured? 156 Prefigurative politics 156 Prefigurative politics in Occupy 161 Encampments 161 Decision-making 164 Politicisation 167 Beyond prefigurative politics and towards living temporalities of real democracy 170 Living temporalities and real democracy 172 Living real democracy in Occupy 173 Social problems and social/political groups in Occupy 175 Burnout 178 Camps as non-permanent spaces 180 Autonomous actions 181 Divisions 183 Conclusion, or what we can learn for our future political engagement 185 7. REAL POLITICS IN OCCUPY: TRANSCENDING THE RULES OF THE DAY 188 Occupy as a political act 190 Non-intentionality and hyperpoliticisation as depoliticisation 191 Traversing the fantasy and questioning the legitimacy of the status quo 193 Decisions and the violence of law 200 vii Occupy and its challenges 203 Challenges of non-hierarchical organising 204 Autonomy versus community of decision-making 207 The 99% - the vicissitudes of radical inclusion 210 Occupy and its aporias 213 Democracy is to-come 213 Chance is retroactive 215 Real democracy 217 Tomorrow, it’s back to the streets – again and again? 219
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