i Becoming a Movement Radical Subjects in International Politics Series Editor: Ruth Kinna This series uses the idea of political subjection to promote the discussion and analysis of individual, communal and civic participation and activism. ‘Radical subjects’ refer both to the character of the topics and issues tacked in the series and to the ethic guiding the research. The series has a radical focus in that it provides a springboard for the discussion of activism that sits outside or on the fringes of institutional politics, yet which, insofar as it reflects a commitment to social change, is far from marginal. It provides a platform for scholarship that interrogates modern political movements, probes the local, regional and global dimensions of activist networking and the principles that drive them, and develops innovative frames to analyse issues of exclusion and empowerment. The scope of the series is defined by engagement with the concept of the radical in contemporary politics but includes research that is multi- or interdisciplinary, working at the boundaries of art and politics, political utopianism, feminism, sociology and radical geography. Titles in Series: Taking the Square: Mediated Dissent and Occupations of Public Space, edited by Maria Rovisco and Jonathan Corpus Ong The Politics of Transnational Peasant Struggle: Resistance, Rights and Democracy, Robin Dunford Sustainable Urbanism and Direct Action: Case Studies in Dialectical Activism, Benjamin Heim Shepard Participation and Non-Participation in Student Activism: Paths and Barriers to Mobilizing Young People for Political Action, Alexander Hensby The Crisis of Liberal Democracy and the Path Ahead, Bernd Reiter Becoming a Movement: Identity, Narratives and Memory in the European Global Justice Movement, Priska Daphi Becoming a Movement Identity, Narrative and Memory in the European Global Justice Movement Priska Daphi London • New York Published by Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd. Unit A, Whitacre Mews, 26-34 Stannary Street, London SE11 4AB www.rowmaninternational.com Rowman & Littlefield International Ltd. is an affiliate of Rowman & Littlefield 4501 Forbes Boulevard, Suite 200, Lanham, Maryland 20706, USA With additional offices in Boulder, New York, Toronto (Canada), and Plymouth (UK) www.rowman.com Open Access to this publication was supported by the DFG funded Cluster of Excellence “Normative Orders” at Goethe University Frankfurt am Main. Copyright © Priska Daphi 2017 All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote passages in a review. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available ISBN 978-1-78660-379-1 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 978-1-78660-381-4 (electronic) ∞ ™ The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements of American National Standard for Information Sciences—Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992. Printed in the United States of America To Ursula Daphi, in memoriam Contents List of Abbreviations ix List of Illustrations xi Introduction: Narrating the Global Justice Movement in Europe 1 Different Paths of the GJM in Europe 3 Plan of the Book 12 1 Movement Identity, Narrative and Memory 17 Collective Identity in Social Movements 18 Different Approaches to Collective Identity 20 Narrative Identity Formation and Group Memory 25 Combining Content and Structural Analysis 27 2 Differences in Narrating the GJM 33 Remembering the GJM in Italy 34 Remembering the GJM in Germany 39 Remembering the GJM in Poland 45 Sectorial Differences across Countries 51 Conclusion 57 3 The Shared GJM Narrative 63 A ‘Desert’ Before Our Time 65 The Build-Up 68 The GJM’s Peak 74 The End 79 Conclusion 82 4 The GJM Narrative and Movement Identity 87 Continuity of the GJM Narrative from 1997 to 2012 88 vii viii Contents The Limits of the GJM Narrative 94 Conclusion 100 Conclusion: Narrative Identity and Movement Continuity 105 Summary: The Role of Stories in Defining Commonalities 105 Movement Identity, Narrative and Memory 107 Narratives and Movement Continuity 111 Acknowledgements 117 Appendix A: Interviews and Focus Groups with GJM Activists 119 Appendix B: Selection of GJM Documents 123 Bibliography 127 Cited GJM Documents 141 Index 147 List of Abbreviations AC Anti-capitalist GJM sector ACLI Associazioni Cristiane Lavoratori Italiani AN Anti-neoliberal GJM sector ARCI Associazione Ricreativa e Culturale Italiana ATTAC Association pour une Taxation des Transactions financières pour l’Aide aux Citoyens BUKO Bundeskoordination Internationalismus BUND Bund für Umwelt und Naturschutz Deutschland CGIL Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro CISL Confederazione Italiana Sindacati Lavoratori COBAS Confederazione dei Comitati di Base CUB Comitati Unitari di Base DE Germany EP Eco-pacifist GJM sector ESF European Social Forum EU European Union FAO Food and Agriculture Organization FG Focus Group FIOM Federazione Impiegati Operai Metallurgici G7/8 Group of Seven/Eight GJM Global Justice Movement GSF Genoa Social Forum I Interview IG-Metall Industriegewerkschaft Metall IL Interventionistische Linke ILA Informationsstelle Lateinamerika IMF International Monetary Fund ix x List of Abbreviations INT International IST International Socialist Tendency IT Italy KRiOPR Komitet Pomocy i Obrony Represjonowanych MAI Multilateral Agreement on Investment NAFTA North American Free Trade Agreement NGO Non-Governmental Organisation NSZZ Niezależny Samorządny Związek Zawodowy PCI Partito Comunista Italiano PDS Partito Democratico della Sinistra PGA Peoples’ Global Action PL Poland PPP Polska Partia Pracy PPS Polska Partia Socjalistyczna PRC Partito della Rifondazione Comunista SAV Sozialistische Alternative SPD Sozialdemokratische Partei Deutschlands TINA There Is No Alternative UIL Unione Italiana del Lavoro UN United Nations UP Unia Pracy US United States of America Ver.di Vereinte Dienstleistungsgewerkschaft WASG Wahlalternative Arbeit und Soziale Gerechtigkeit WB World Bank WEED World Economy, Ecology and Development WSF World Social Forum WTO World Trade Organisation WWF World Wide Fund for Nature List of Illustrations FIGURES Figure 2.1 Frequency of GJM Groups in Italian Narratives 19 Figure 2.2 Frequency of GJM Events in Italian Narratives 21 Figure 2.3 Frequency of GJM Groups in German Narratives 25 Figure 2.4 Frequency of GJM Events in German Narratives 27 Figure 2.5 Frequency of GJM Groups in Polish Narratives 30 Figure 2.6 Frequency of GJM Events in Polish Narratives 33 TABLES Table 3.1 The GJM Narrative’s Four Episodes 48 Table AppA.1 List of Interviews and Focus Groups by Country, Interview Date and Sector 104 Table AppB.1 List of Selected GJM Publications by Country 108 xi Introduction Narrating the Global Justice Movement in Europe This spirit of the era produced … the feeling that we could overcome these divisions ... that a common front existed. You could be moderate, you could be radical, you could be underground and you could be more institutional … but the common ground was this idea that this world needed to be changed. Which is a very simple sentence, but in that period … [it] was something revolution- ary. (I9/IT/EP-4) Social movements are experts in telling compelling stories. Engaged in politi- cal and cultural conflicts, social movements’ central strength is to challenge existing perspectives on reality and propose new ones. Narratives play a central role in this as a good story can convince us that something is wrong, that it needs to be addressed immediately and that it requires a specific solu- tion. A good story can also tell us who we are – as individuals and as groups. In the past years, social movement scholars have become increasingly interested in narratives.1 Narratives foster the mobilisation and commitment of activists as well as strengthen the resonance of their claims within public discourse and institutional politics. Their power lies in their capacity to elicit sympathy and make sense of past events (Polletta, 1998b, 2006). Movement scholars have explored the role of narratives in various contexts of conten- tious politics, for example, their role in compelling and sustaining collective action (e.g., Fine, 1995; Nepstad, 2001; Jacobs, 2002), in dealing with repres- sion and defeat (e.g., Wahlström, 2011; Owens, 2009; Beckwith, 2015) or in discrediting counter-movements (e.g., Crowley, 2009). This book explores the role of narratives in building movement identity, a vital element in activists’ collective actions and continued commitment. With the ‘narrative turn’ in the social sciences since the 1980s, the connection between narratives and identity received considerable scholarly attention. 1 2 Introduction Nonetheless, this connection so far remains ‘more asserted than demon- strated’ (Polletta et al., 2011, p. 113) since empirical studies are rare, also within social movement studies. What qualities does a story require to build and maintain collective identity? In answering this question the book aims to contribute to a better understanding of the link between narratives and collec- tive identity as well as of the processes underlying the formation of collective identity in social movements more generally. My analysis in particular focuses on the case of the