TIME, TECHNOLOGY AND TROUBLEMAKERS: 'FAST ACTIVISM' AND THE ALTER-GLOBALIZATION MOVEMENT IN CANADA KAMILA PIETRZYK A DISSERTATION SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY OF GRADJJATE STUDIES IN PARTIAL FULFILLMENT OF THE REQUIREMENTS FOR THE DEGREE OF DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY GRADUATE PROGRAM IN POLITICAL SCIENCE YORK UNIVERSITY TORONTO, ONTARIO JUNE 2013 ©KAMILA PIETRZYK 2013 ii Abstract This study documents and critically evaluates the history of the alter-globalization movement in Canada. It makes a contribution to existing scholarship by providing the most comprehensive historical account available of the movement's major mobilizations during the past fifteen years. The study also deploys an interdisciplinary theoretical framework to examine the largely overlooked temporal dimensions of contemporary activism in the age of instant communication. While recent years have seen a proliferation of scholarship lauding the advantages of "new media activism," of which the alter­ globalization movement in an example par excellence, most of this literature neglects what are arguably more pressing questions regarding the ways in which contemporary social actors conceptualize and organize time, and the implications of these hegemonic temporal norms for patterns of collective action. To redress this gap, this study evaluates the social, cultural and political implications for activism of the process of time-space compression, driven by the basic dynamics of capitalism and facilitated by digital communication technologies. Using evidence collected from semi-structured interviews, it therefore not only offers the first systematic and in-depth account of the history (and pre-history) of the Canadian alter-globalization movement, it also demonstrates that the social acceleration of time facilitated by new media technologies encourages a tendency toward "fast activism" by diminishing three activist time-related practices in particular: building sustained movement infrastructure, learning from the past, that is, collective memory, and thinking reflexively about the future, that is, long-term strategic planning. The study's conclusion offers some tentative suggestions for improving the political capacities and potentials of today's anti-status quo troublemakers. iii For my parents iv Acknowledgements I want to express my sincere gratitude to my advisor Dr. Leo Panitch for his peerless intellectual guidance and consistently going the extra mile to support my academic ambitions. Special thanks are due to Dr. Lesley Wood and Dr. Stephanie Ross, for their valuable (and speedy) comments and suggestions concerning this project. I also wish to · acknowledge Dr. Edward Comor, who first inspired me to pursue this rewarding research path. Many thanks also to the members of my defense committee. In addition, I wish to sincerely thank my generous respondents, without whom this project would not have been possible, as well as all of my friends and family, whose unwavering support in good times and bad continues to be deeply appreciated. Finally, I would also like to thank the wonderful staff in the Department of Political Science, as well as the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada and the Provost of York University for their support. v Table of Contents ABSTRACT ................................................................................................................ ii DEDICATION ............................................................................................................ iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ....................................................................................... iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ............................................................................................ v INTRODUCTION ....................................................................................................... l Chapter Outline .................................................................................................. 4 CHAPTER 1: Theoretical Framework: Media, Time, and Movements ................. 7 Medium Theory and the Political Economy of Time ....................................... .12 Social Acceleration ............................................................................................ 17 Modernity and the Future Time Perspective ..................................................... 20 The Politics ofHere and Now ............................................................... 25 The Collapse ofthe Future .................................................................... 27 Media, Memory and Movements ...................................................................... 28 Durability and Networks ................................................................................... 38 AGM as a Cycle of Protest ................................................................................ 42 Research Questions and Methodology............................................................. .43 CHAPTER 2: The Canadian AGM in Historical Perspective ................................ .49 Popular Summit: Ottawa, 1981 .......................................................................... 52 "No, Eh?" The Struggle against the FTA. .......................................................... 53 The G7 in Toronto, 1988 .................................................................................... 59 The North American Free Trade Agreement.. .................................................... 63 The People's Summit, Halifax, 1995 .................................................................. 69 A Shift in Tactics ................................................................................................ 71 The anti-MAI campaign ..................................................................................... 74 "No to APEC!" Vancouver 1997 ........................................................................ 84 CHAPTER 3: "Cycle 2.0" : The AGM at the Turn of the Millennium ................... 99 From Washington to Windsor............................................................................ 100 Quebec City 2001: "Stop the FTAA!" .............................................................. 111 Debate: Diversity ofTactics .................................................................. 118 vi 9/11 .................................................................................................................... 135 Kananaskis 2002: "Wanted: the G8, for crimes against humanity and the environment!" .................................................................................................... 13 7 Debate: Summit-Hopping ...................................................................... 146 "No Blood For Oil!" .......................................................................................... 155 CHAPTER 4: Crisis, Resistance, Change: The Canadian AGM 2007-2010 .......... 159 Montebello 2007: "Stop the War, Stop the SPP!" ............................................. .160 Forum Social Quebecois .................................................................................... 173 "No Olympics on Stolen Native Land!" ............................................................ 175 Toronto 2010: "Defend Turtle Island: Abolish the G8/G20!" ............................ l 77 CHAPTER 5: Learning from the Past, Looking to the Future: Collective Memory and Long-Term Planning in AGM Activists' Practice ............. 213 Collective Memory............................................................................................. 214 Media, Memory and Movement Infrastructure ....................................... 217 The Practices ofMemory ...................................................................... .220 Counter-Memory or Corporate Media Memory? .................................. 226 Forgive and Forget? ............................................................................... 227 Strategic Planning in the 'Empire of Speed' ...................................................... 229 Strategic Planning Tools ........................................................................ 236 Strategic Planning in Social Movement Organizations ......................... 237 Long-Term Planning in Comparative Perspective ................................. 242 CONCLUSION: Time to Resist .................................................................................. 245 Making Memory Matter..................................................................................... 253 Thinking Strategically for Radicals ................................................................... 257 The Need for Reflexivity................................................................................... 259 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................ 262 APPENDIX ...................................................................................... 295 1 Introduction In June 2010, thousands of people took to the streets of Toronto in protest as the leaders of the world's most powerful states - the Group of Twenty (G20)- met inside the heavily fortified Metro Toronto Convention Centre amidst the twenty-first century's first major economic crisis. The meeting agenda focused above all on reaching agreement regarding spending cuts designed to socialize the cost of huge government bailouts handed out to banks and financial corporations in the previous two years. The themes, targets and tactics of the protests against the