IV ISA Forum of Sociology (February 23-28, 2021)

588

Alter-Activists in the Contemporary World: Rethinking Autonomy and Institutionalization

Abstract Submissions Closed

RC47 Social Classes and Social Movements (host committee)

Language: Spanish, English and French

Session Type: Oral

Many movements around the world reveal some aspects of an alter-activist culture. Their perception of social change is based on participation, the multiplicity of "other possible worlds", the horizontality of social relationships and the defense of diversity. It is through these modalities that actors question the issues that concern the social order, designing alternatives for possible futures at the same time. Over the past two decades, from Spain to Brazil, from Istanbul to Moscow, from Quebec to Japan, a global wave of protest movements has occupied public spaces to demand more democracy and participation. Alter-activist movements share a critical view of institutions as they exist. What are their strategies to avoid centralization or internal prioritization? What forms of decision-making and internal organization are possible to bypass the much criticized institutional verticalization? This panel would focus on the relationship between movements, actors and institutions. If movement, on the one hand, far from institutions risk isolation, on the other hand, those who come closer to them are faced with the risk of reproducing their structural logics. A total rejection of institutions is part of a prefigurative and daily activism exploring alternatives to global capitalism. It is the feelings of rejection of institutions that make individuals act and provoke the desire for an alternative life. Contemporary protest movements that are reconfiguring themselves through an institutional rupture and the reappropriation of institutions are to be explored, considering that the two modalities of action are both mixed within an alter-activist culture.