CONSTITUENT IMAGINATION CONSTITUENT IMAGINATION MILITANT INVESTIGATIONS // COLLECTIVE THEORIZATION EDITED BY STEVPHEN SHUKAITIS + DAVID GRAEBER WITH ERIKA BIDDLE AK Press Oakland // Edinburgh // West Virginia Constituent Imagination: Militant Investigations // Collective Theorization Edited by Stevphen Shukaitis + David Graeber ISBN 978-1-904859-35-2 Library of Congress Number: 2006924199 ©2007 Stevphen Shukaitis + David Graeber This edition ©2007 AK Press For more information and ongoing projects: http://www.constituentimagination.net [email protected] Cover Design: Haduhi Szukis Layout: C. Weigl AK Press 674-A 23rd Street Oakland, CA 94612 www.akpress.org [email protected] 510.208.1700 AK Press U.K. PO Box 12766 Edinburgh EH8 9YE www.akuk.com [email protected] 0131.555.5165 Printed in Canada on 100% recycled, acid-free paper by union labor. Contents Acknowledgements 7 How to Use This Book 9 Introduction Stevphen Shukaitis + David Graeber 11 :: Moments of Possibility // Genealogies of Resistance :: Introduction 37 Continental Drift: Activist Research, From Geopolitics to Geopoetics Brian Holmes 39 Do It Yourself…and the Movement Beyond Capitalism Ben Holtzman, Craig Hughes, Kevin Van Meter 44 Logic and Theory of Inquiry: Militant Praxis as Subject and Episteme Antonio Negri 62 Something More on Research Militancy: Footnotes on Procedures and (In)Decisions Colectivo Situaciones 73 The Breath of the Possible Gavin Grindon 94 :: Circuits of Struggles :: Introduction 111 Drifting Through the Knowledge Machine Maribel Casas-Cortés + Sebastián Cobarrubias 112 Autonomy, Recognition, Movement Angela Mitropoulos 127 Fragments on Machinic Intellectuals Jack Bratich 137 Reinventing Technology: Artifi cial Intelligence from the Top of a Sycamore Tree Harry Halpin 155 Practicing Militant Ethnography with the Movement for Global Resistance in Barcelona Jeffrey S. Juris 164 :: Communities of/in Resistance :: Introduction 179 Eating in Public Gaye Chan + Nandita Sharma 180 Bridging the Praxis Divide: From Direct Action to Direct Services and Back Again Ben Shepard 189 The Revolution Will Wear a Sweater: Knitting and Global Justice Activism Kirsty Robertson 209 Hard Livin’: Bare Life, Autoethnography, and the Homeless Body BRE 223 Forging Spaces of Justice Anita Lacey 242 :: Education & Ethics :: Introduction 251 Global Uprisings: Towards a Politics of the Artisan Michal Osterweil + Graeme Chesters 253 Black Sails in the Corridor: Treasonous Minds and the Desire for Mutiny Dave Eden 263 Practicing Anarchist Theory: Towards a Participatory Political Philosophy Uri Gordon 276 Toward an Anti-Authoritarian Anti-Racist Pedagogy Ashar Latif + Sandra Jeppesen 288 No Gods, No Masters Degrees CrimethInc Ex-Workers’ Collective 301 Glossary 314 Author Bios 320 Resources 325 Index 329 Acknowledgements Writing acknowledgements for a volume like this is an absurd but nec- essary task. Absurd because, if one were to properly thank everyone who has provided inspiration and ideas, the result would be a volume composed mainly of extended thank yous; necessary because without vibrant commu- nities of resistance there would be no point is assembling a book like this. Militant investigation is an inherently collective and social process and, for this reason, trying to credit individuals for ideas is diffi cult in the same way that attempting to claim ownership over them is. It is for our companer@s around the world, from the recuperated factories of Argentina to the Italian social centers, from joyful festivals in the streets to building new communi- ties in and beyond the classroom, that we research, write, and teach. Having said that we would still like to acknowledge the efforts of people without whom this project never would have seen the light of day. Special thanks to Yvonne Liu, Nate Holdren, Jim Fleming, Ben Meyers, and Jack Z. Bratich for on-going conversations and friendship. Thanks to Stefano Harney, Campbell Jones, and everyone else from the University of Leicester Centre for Philosophy and Political Economy. Much respect to Stephen Dunne and Eleni Karamali who helped co-edit the “Inscribing Organized Resistance” issue of ephemera (www.ephemeraweb.org) that grew out of this project. An extra special thanks to Sophea Lerner for being such a caring and wonderful person during the process of putting this book together. Thanks to Andréa Schmidt, the Institute for Anarchist Studies and the wonderful folks at AK Press for their support of the project. And thanks to the Snydersville Diner for a seemingly endless supply of coffee and tasty slices of pie that provided excellent encouragement during the process of editing and revising. The front cover image is from the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Buenos Aires in Argentina. Fittingly enough, someone has spray painted both “ManicomoManicomo” (madhouse) and “4 IImagacionmagacion alal PoderPoder” (All power to the imagination), which succinctly summarizes the ambivalent nature of forms of radicalism embedded in the university. The image facing the Introduction is one of Dave Eden’s tattoos, taken during a particularly joyous weekend of reveling in Canberra, Australia (of all places). 8 Constituent Imagination Ambrose Bierce once described the imagination as “a warehouse of facts, with poet and liar in joint ownership.” With that in mind, we dedicate this book to all those who steal moments from the weight of the present to dream and dance towards a better tomorrow. All the poets, liars, dreamers, heretics, and brethren of the new free spirit, cheers to you. Gracious thanks for permission to reprint articles that have appeared else- where in English: “Continental Drift: Activist Research, From Geopolitics to Geopoetics” (FrameworkFramework IssueIssue 4 DecemberDecember 22005);005); “Do“Do IItt YYourself…andourself…and the Movement Beyond Capitalism” (RadicalRadical SocietySociety Volume 31, Number 1 2004); “Something More on Research Militancy: Footnotes on Procedures and (In)Decisions” (ephemera Volume 5, Number 4 November 2005); and “Autonomy, Recognition, Movement” (the commoner NumberNumber 1111 SpringSpring / Summer 2006). We would also like to thank the following people for the images (listed by page number) that hopefully make this volume more interesting to look at than it would be otherwise: Haduhi Szukis (10, 250), RadicalGraphics.org (36), the Dissent Network! (110), and Gaye Chan (178). How to Use This Book Method is nothing else than refl ective knowledge, or the idea of an idea…the foundation which must direct our thoughts can be noth- ing other than the knowledge of that which constitutes the reality of truth, and the knowledge of the understanding, its properties and power. —Baruch Spinoza This is not a book that has been designed to sit on a shelf; its primary purpose is not to be used as a citation or reference in important sounding journals that no one reads. It is a text intended for use as a tool to gather experiences, examples, and materials that can further the development of the constituent power of lived imagination that will transform the world around us. Militant research is not a specialized task, a process that only involves those who are traditionally thought of as researchers. It is an intensifi ca- tion and deepening of the political. Militant research starts from the under- standings, experiences, and relations generated through organizing, as both a method of political action and as a form of knowledge. With this in mind, individuals and groups are encouraged to send their stories and experiences of conducting militant research to [email protected]. New materials and information will be added to the website for this project regularly: http://www.constituentimagination.net. Suggestions of materials, resources, and links are always welcome and encouraged. Introduction Stevphen Shukaitis + David Graeber houghts. Provocations. Explorations. Forms of investigation and so- cial research that expand possibilities for political action, proliferat- Ting tactics of resistance through the constituent power of the imagi- nation. Walking, we ask questions, not from the perspective of the theorist removed and separate from organizing, but rather from within and as part of the multiple and overlapping cycles and circuits of struggle. For the removed theorist, movements themselves are mere abstractions, pieces of data to be categorized, analyzed, and fi xed. The work of militant investigation is multi- ple, collectively extending forms of antagonism to new levels of understand- ing, composing fl esh-made words from immanent processes of resistance. Far from vanguardist notions of intellectual practice that translate organiz- ing strategies and concepts for populations who are believed to be too stupid or unable to move beyond trade union consciousness, it is a process of col- lective wondering and wandering that is not afraid to admit that the question of how to move forward is always uncertain, diffi cult, and never resolved in easy answers that are eternally correct. As an open process, militant inves- tigation discovers new possibilities within the present, turning bottlenecks and seeming dead ends into new opportunities for joyful insurgency. A beautiful example of this is John Holloway’s book, Change the World Without Taking Power. Holloway,Holloway, a ssoft-spokenoft-spoken SScottishcottish ppoliticalolitical philosopher, was associated with the “Open Marxism” school developed at the University of Edinburgh where he taught in the 1970s and