neoliberal resistance

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Researching Resistance to Neoliberal Globalization:Engaged Ethnography as Solidarity and Praxis

ANDREW MATHERS & MARIO NOVELLI

University of the West of England, UK, University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

In this paper we investigate the process of carrying out ethnographic studies of organized resistance

to neoliberal globalization. We do so by drawing upon the critical and public social science of

Bourdieu and Santos, two highly influential opponents of neoliberalism, and by utilizing

Burawoys extended case method for the investigation of two instances of resistance. The first

is of a trade union, Sintraemcali, that has been engaged in a longstanding struggle over the

introduction of neoliberal policies in the city of Cali in south-west Colombia. The second is of

The European Marches against Unemployment, Job Insecurity and Social Exclusion. We then

reflect upon our approach to researching this resistance and conclude by identifying two key

elements of engaged ethnography, solidarity and praxis, that together help provide new insights

into the strategies and practices of social movement resistance to neoliberal globalization.

En este documento investigamos el proceso de llevar a cabo estudios etnogra ficos sobre la

resistencia organizada a la globalizacion neoliberal. Lo hacemos utilizando la ciencia social

crtica y publica de Bourdieu y Santos, dos oponentes altamente influyetes del neoliberalismo, y

utilizando el metodo del caso ampliado de Burawoy, (ECM, por sus siglas en ingles) para la

investigacion de dos ejemplos de resistencia. El primero es sobre un sindicato, Sintraemcali, que

se ha involucrado en una lucha de larga duracon contra la introduccion de politicas

neoliberales en la ciudad de Cali en el sudeste de Colombia. El segundo es sobre Las Marchas

Europeas contra el paro, la precariedad y la exclusion. (Red EM, por sus siglas en ingles).

Luego reflexionamos sobre nuestro enfoque en la investigacion de esta resistencia y concluimos

en la identificacion de dos elementos claves de etnografa comprometida, solidaridad y praxis,

que juntas ayudan a proporcionas nuevos puntos de vista sobre las estrategias y practicas de laresistencia de los movimientos sociales a la globalizacion neoliberal.

Correspondence Address: Dr Andrew Mathers, School of Sociology, University of the West of England, Coldharbour

Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY, UK. Email: [email protected]; Dr Mario Novelli, Department of Human Geogra-

phy, Planning & International Development, Universteit van Amsterdam, RoeterseilandBuilding G, Nieuwe Prinsen-

gracht 130, 1018 VZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Email: [email protected]

1474-7731 Print/1474-774X Online/07/02022921 # 2007 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/14747730701345259

Globalizations

June 2007, Vol. 4, No. 2, pp. 229249


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Introduction

Following the failure of the social struggles in the period following 1968, and disillusionment with

the socialist project, the dominant trend amongst radical academics was to retreat into the academy

to develop what Bourdieu (2003) termed campus radicalism which eschewed engagement with

social struggles. Meanwhile a new generation of right-wing academics provided the intellectualammunition for the neoliberal counter-revolution and a wholesale assault on acquired social

rights. This onslaught has had dire social consequences to which social scientists can bear

witness, but it has also been met with new waves of protest across the globe with which radical aca-

demics can now re-engage. Indeed, academics are but one of a range of intellectuals whom Bourdieu

(2003) asserts are indispensable to the successful development of contemporary social struggles.

Michael Burawoy (2005) cites the vote of the American Sociological Association against the

US invasion of Iraq as evidence of how sociologists have moved leftwards whilst the world has

moved to the right resulting in increasing demands for a re-engaged public sociology. This, we

believe, is an expression of a broader process of re-engagement amongst academics who share

the aim of bringing innovation and indeed radical changes to bear in response to the multiple

crises of our era (Gills, 2004, p. 5).

Realizing this aim raises general issues relating to the various ways in which academics express

their commitment. More specifically, and our concern in this paper, is how academics can engage

most appropriately and effectively with those movements that are the primary agents of global

transformation. These matters have already begun to be addressed by contributors to Globaliza-

tions who have sought primarily to establish a real bridge between the academic world and the

world of practice, the world of action (Gills, 2004, p. 2) by relating theory to practice so as to

consider important strategic questions for alter-globalisation movements (Gills, 2004, p. 2).

These contributions include: an analysis of how ATTAC can continue the balancing act of

counter-hegemony so as to remain a core organization of the alter-globalization movement

(Birchfield and Freyburg-Inan, 2004, p. 299); an evaluation of the possibilities for cooperation

between labour and social movements in forming joint strategies against neoliberalism (Bieler

and Morton, 2004a, p. 305); and a critical analysis of theories of transnational capitalism and

new imperialism so as to inform the development of progressive politics within the alter-glo-

balization movement (Kiely, 2005). These contributions are timely and welcome to both the aca-

demic and activist worlds. It is possible, however, to view them as interventions into the second

from the standpoint of the first. Our endeavour is to traverse both worlds through the development

of roles such as activist-researcher. While we have a strong affinity with the principles for a dia-

logue between activism and critical globalization research outlined in a recent contribution to Glo-

balizations, we do not regard political engagement and analytic objectivity as competing pulls

(Johnston and Goodman, 2006, p. 1). We rather adopt Burawoys Extended Case Method (ECM),

which rejects detachment, to construct a bridge between academia and activism akin to the third

space (Routledge, 1996), whose content is a critically engaged approach to researching resistance

to neoliberal globalization.Our research approach is concerned with investigating internal movement processes (Byrd,

2005) through an ethnographic approach able to focus on the micro-processes through which

macroresistance (Mittelman, 2004) is actually constructed while embedding these processes

in the macro-structural environment of neoliberal globalization. By practising this approach,

we have produced insider accounts of how specific episodes of resistance are actually achieving

inclusion, mass participation and internationalism as well as overcoming fragmentation

while linking . . . the local level with the regional and the global (Gills, 2005, pp. 1011).

230 A. Mathers and M. Novelli


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Our approach to researching resistance to neoliberalism is an engaged ethnography, the

starting points for which are Burawoys work on public sociology, his ECM and its relationship

more broadly to critical theory which we outline in section two. We also draw upon the work of

Pierre Bourdieu and Boaventura de Sousa Santostwo critical public intellectuals who, along-

side Burawoy, provide us with inspiration and theoretical and practical guidance for our actual

ethnographic case studies of resistance to neoliberalism, an outline of which we present insection three. The first study is of a public services trade union, Sintraemcali, which has been

engaged in a longstanding struggle over the introduction of neoliberal policies in the south-

west of Colombia. The key questions which this case study sought to address was how a

small trade union with only 3,000 members was able to mobilize local, national and transna-

tional support, and how it managed to overturn a process of privatization that had the full

backing of local elites, the national government, the World Bank, the IMF (International

Monetary Fund), and several key multinational corporations with all the economic, political

and military power that this entailed. The second study is of The European Marches against

Unemployment, Job Insecurity and Social Exclusion (EM Network). The central question

posed was how and why did those organizations representing the most marginalized sections

of society succeed in producing effective episodes of transnational resistance to the neoliberalEU where organized labour had largely failed. In section four, we extend out from these case

studies to examine critically our own practices of engaged ethnography in the field structured

around Burawoys four categories of intervention, process, structuration and reconstruction.

We conclude by highlighting two central tenets of this engaged ethnography: solidarity with

research subjects and research praxis that produces insights into how the micro-processes of

resistance are linked to a macro-analysis of neoliberal globalization thereby making a contri-

bution to advancing such resistance.

Developing an Engaged Ethnography of Resistance to Neoliberal Globalization

In this section we outline a social scientific basis for engaged ethnography that is both intellec-tually critical and has a moral and political commitment to contributing to social change. We

also start to show how this critical and committed approach could be operationalized through

an outline of the ECM.

For a Public and Critical Social Science

In his recent work arguing for a return to public sociology, Burawoy (2004) develops a

disciplinary matrix in which he locates four ideal types of sociology distinguished in terms of

knowledge type and audience (Figure 1). This typology of sociology is a useful starting point

for our engaged ethnography of resistance to neoliberal globalization in that it enables us to

identify its basis in a social science that is both intellectually critical and oriented to intervention

Figure 1. Typology of sociology. Adapted from Burawoy (2004, p. 1607)

Researching Resistance to Neoliberal Globalization 231


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in the public sphere. For Burawoy, public sociology can be sub-divided into the categories of

elite and organic/grassroots. Our approach clearly has an affinity with the latter in that itseeks to develop a dialogue with active and counter-hegemonic publics (Burawoy, 2004,

p. 1607). Our work is also closely aligned with critical sociology in that the latter is characterized

by a commitment to social and political change as a driving force of research.

This leads us more broadly to the question of critical theory itself and the role of intellectualstherein.1 Our approach falls within the tradition of a humanistic Marxism. It builds on the

Frankfurt Schools (see Horkheimer, 1982) critique of traditional theory and draws on the more

recent work of the neo-Gramscian school in grappling with issues of neoliberal globalization and cri-

tique (see Bieler and Morton, 2004b, for an overview). Robert Cox, a foundational figure within neo-

Gramscian thinking argues that, at a meta-level, there are two major ways of categorizing theory. The

first, problem-solving theory, takes the prevailing order as given and seeks to delineate and mark off

the problem from its broader social relations. Because it takes the present as given, it does not seek to

challenge the existing social order; rather its aim is to make this order run more smoothly and effi-

ciently. For that reason problem-solving theory has a built-in system bias in that it tries to generate

solutions that make the system work better rather than challenging the system itself.

The second approach, critical theory, begins by problematizing the problem itself, seeking tounderstand and locate it as a component within a far bigger and intimately connected picture.

Cox (1996, p. 85) criticized academic conventions for dividing the totality of the social

world into separate spheres in order to understand particular phenomena or events. For Cox,

the danger is that knowledge of particular events is only a fragment of the social totality, and

that it is necessary to seek to reintegrate that knowledge into the bigger picture so that it

becomes the basis for constructing a structured and dynamic view of larger wholes (Cox,

1996, p. 85). A critical theory approach allows us to transcend the parameters of the proble-

matic itself and provides the possibility of imagining alternatives to the status quo. While this

does not mean that critical theory ignores problems and their possible solutions, what it

does imply is that there is space for a normative approach that can seek out other possibilities.

In that sense critical theory contains within it a utopian element, but this is grounded in ananalysis of the possible. Cox argues that critical theory must reject improbable alternatives

just as it rejects the permanency of the existing order, and in that manner it can act as a

guide to strategic action for bringing about an alternative order (Cox, 1996, p. 87).

Whilst placing our approach within both critical theory and public sociology, it is also cen-

trally concerned with exploring the strategies and practices of resistance. For this reason we have

sought intellectual guidance from critical theorists whose work has actively engaged with opposi-

tional and subaltern movements. In this pursuit we have found the work of two prominent critical

theorists, Pierre Bourdieu and Boaventura de Sousa Santos, to be of infinite inspiration and utility.

Bourdieu

Pierre Bourdieu had a long and distinguished career as a critical theorist making outstanding

contributions to a number of fields. However, becoming increasingly aware of the social conse-

quences of neoliberal restructuring, Bourdieus status as a renowned critical sociologist became,

in the last decade of his life, increasingly linked to a role as a public sociologist. For Bourdieu,

this role took the form of declaring his support for those engaged in resistance to neoliberal

restructuring. This was epitomized by his address to striking rail workers at the height of the

public service workers strikes in 1995 whose struggle he declared was one Against the

Destruction of a Civilisation (Bourdieu, 1998, pp. 2428).



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Bourdieus outlook on intellectual engagement finds its most developed expression in his final

published work in which he argues for a scholarship with commitment (Bourdieu, 2003,

pp. 1725). In this text he provides examples of both negative and positive functions for

engaged intellectuals. Negative functions include providing a critique of the dominant dis-

courses that underpin state restructuring. Bourdieu performed this function admirably by expos-

ing such myths as the need to roll back the state in the face of the apparently inevitable processesof globalization (Bourdieu, 1998).

For Bourdieu, one of the ways that intellectuals can fulfil their positive function of

contributing to the collective work of political intervention (Bourdieu, 2003, p. 21) is by under-

taking investigations into the adverse social effects of neoliberal restructuring on peoples every-

day lives. In this vein, Bourdieus call is reminiscent of C. Wright Mills (1963) invocation for

sociologists to link private troubles to public ills. Bourdieu (1999) achieved such a link by

providing accounts of the social suffering of a diversity of individuals produced by the retreat

of the left hand of the state. Amongst the positive outcomes of this work were the voice in

public life that it provided for the socially marginalized and its effect of demonstrating the

common cause of diverse social suffering thereby countering the divisive effects of neoliberal

policies. Bourdieus methodology was also exemplary in that he drew upon his sociologicalknowledge of the social conditions faced by each person interviewed while attempting to

reduce the power relationship and generate solidarity between interviewer and interviewee.

The result was an extraordinary discourse which affirmed the point of view of the most dis-

advantaged (Bourdieu, 1999, pp. 607626).

Another positive function for engaged intellectuals proposed and practised by Bourdieu

(2003, p. 21) was to work closely with social movements to advance the collective production

of realistic utopias. Bourdieu added his social weight not only to the movement of strikers in

France in 1995, but also to the unemployed in France in 1997 and to the European Marches

which he regarded as an exemplary case of social movement internationalism. Bourdieu

(2003, p. 47) rejected a hierarchical model of the relationship between intellectual and social

movements and proposed instead a more pragmatic approach that embraced mutual learningamongst intellectuals and activists while being based on common aspirations and convictions.

This was the approach he adopted for the formation of the Estates General of the Social

Movement that assembled researchers and activists and in Raisons dAgir, an international

network of engaged intellectuals.

Bourdieus outlook on intellectual commitment provides important insights and exemplary

practices that can inform the development of an engaged ethnography of resistance to neoliberal

globalization. In terms of the relationship between researcher and social movement, at the most

general level solidarity can be developed around common values based in shared opposition to

the social consequences of neoliberalism. This would result in a solidarity of citizens. More con-

cretely, the researcher can also seek new ways of relating to, and working with, social movement

activists so as to overcome existing divisions. In Bourdieus (2003, p. 47) words, the researcheris required to establish modes of communication and discussion of a new type with the

researched. The researcher is also encouraged to assist social movements to enter the public

sphere. This is a question of making the movements visible. This also raises, however, the

vexed question of the possibilities and limits of social movements to achieve social and political

change. Bourdieus work (1998, 1999) suggests a rejection of the doxosophy of much current

professional and policy social science that seeks to recuperate resistance within the parameters

of the neoliberal polity and discourse. By embracing critical and public social science the

researcher opens up the research agenda to the alternatives emerging from the resistance itself.



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Santos

Boaventura de Sousa Santos is a transdisciplinary theorist and a public intellectual who has been

at the centre of the process of constructing the World Social Forum (WSF). His extensive and

wide-ranging corpus of work engages with pressing social and political questions of legality,

social structures, institutions, utopias, social movements and social change which defies thedisciplinary parochialism of our era (see Santos 1995, 1999a, 1999b, 2004a, 2004b).

Santos (1999, p. 33) laments the fact that particularly in the North the social sciences have

ceased to be a source of creative new thinking about society. Instead he argues that the most

innovative ideas and practices are coming from both outside the North and outside of the

academy, and suggests that it is in these sites that critical academics should be looking for

new ideas and insights to reinvigorate social theory. One of these sites has been the emerging

counter-hegemonic process of the WSF, and particularly its geographical home in Porto

Alegre, Brazil (Santos, 2004a) and he has focused much of his recent academic and political

work on thinking and acting within this sphere.

In the academic domain Santos (1999a) talks of the need to move from knowledge as regu-

lation to knowledge as emancipation and raises the question as to why, in a world so full of

things to criticize, has it become so difficult to produce a critical theory within the social

sciences. According to Santos, what we are faced with is a decline in both the paradigm of

social regulation that has failed to bring progress to the majority of the worlds population,

and a decline in the paradigm of social emancipation that now fails to offer a viable emanci-

patory alternative. For this reason, Santos argues, we are in a transition period where we are

facing modern problems to which there are no modern solutions (Santos, 1999a, p. 36).

In order to overcome this and begin the process of constructing knowledge as emancipation

Santos (1999a, pp. 3943) argues that there is a need to move away from the unitary focus on

order in the hegemonic paradigm of knowledge as regulation which is focused upon control-

ling rebellious subjects. As the social sciences have become institutionalized, so order has

become prioritized and solidarity downgraded, hence the reification of capital and the focus

on power from above. Santos argues that knowledge as emancipation needs to redress this situ-

ation and return once again to a focus on rebellion and solidarity.

In order to develop this sociology of rebellion and solidarity, Santos argues that we need to

start by listening to the South (Santos, 1995, p. 506). The South is used metaphorically,

regardless of geographical location, for the site inhabited by those suffering under global capit-

alism, and resisting it. He advocates a learning process whereby academics try to understand

contemporary struggles through a process of critical engagement with those left out of the

benefits of neoliberal globalization. This necessitates a normative affiliation with the South,

though one that neither implies the simple dissolution of the social scientist into the activist

nor keeps a distance between social science and activism (Santos, 1999a, p. 38). Secondly,

Santos (ibid.) calls for a sociology of absences that uncovers the hidden histories and struggles

of the resisting other and a sociology of emergences that charts possible alternative ten-dencies and counter-hegemonic futures. In this process Santos calls for a multicultural dialogue

that forges a pathway towards communicating different knowledges, and creates spaces to hear

different voices. Thirdly, in moving from mono-culturalism to multi-culturalism, a further major

obstacle is that of difference, which requires a politics of translation. In the context of the

emerging process of the WSF and its local and regional offshoots, Santos has posed the

problem of how different groups coming from varied geographical locations, with different his-

tories, objectives, trajectories and protest repertoires can come together, explore their



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differences and conflicts through dialogue, and in doing so forge unity on certain common issues

(Santos, 1999b).

He sees the contemporary situation as differing in two important respects from the post-

Second World War era. Firstly, the intellectual focus was far more concentrated on the

small geographical area of the North, and secondly the intellectuals saw themselves as the

possessors of a privileged knowledge rooted in orthodox Marxism that purveyed the statusof avante garde. Neither the geographical parochialism, nor the messianic role of the intel-

lectuals are tenable today. The committed intellectual thus becomes in Santos terms a facil-

itator that eases contact among different experiences, different ideologies, different

knowledges, different aspirations for social justice and democracy by bringing into the

social movements cross-national comparisons and intercultural translation (Santos, 2004b,

p. 160). In this process the committed intellectual is not searching for some abstract univers-

alism but the possibility of a process of translation whereby aspirations for human dignity

and social justice can be heard from different languages and different cultural and social

vantage points. Santos suggests that new critical theories that promote social change can

emerge out of this process (Santos, 2004b, pp. 14760). The three processes of listening to

the South, a sociology of absences and emergences and a politics of translation provide,simultaneously, both an ethical framework and a research agenda that guide our work on

developing an engaged ethnography.

Burawoys Extended Case Method: Linking the Macro and

Micro in Engaged Ethnography

Having drawn upon the work of leading critical public social scientists to develop an ethically

committed and intellectually critical research approach to investigating resistance to neoliberal

globalization, we now move on to developing an appropriate methodology. Our ethnographic

approach2 stems from our aim of answering the how questions of our cases of organized resist-

ance which we highlighted in the introduction. Our focus is on examining the processes throughwhich resistance is produced, thereby identifying particular strategies and tactics and relating

these to the framework of the current conjuncture of neoliberal globalization through which

they are developed. Burawoys (1998, p. 4) ECM is therefore extremely appropriate in that it

deploys participant observation to locate everyday life in its extralocal and historical context.

For us, Burawoys ECM also provides a valuable framework for addressing the main criti-

cisms of conventional ethnography3 from the perspective of critical theory, which are its

value neutrality and its failure to consider the power effects of unequal social structures on

peoples actions (Hammersley, 1992). Burawoys (2002) ECM is an engaged approach to

ethnographic inquiry which locates each particular case within the unequally structured

global political economy of capitalist society.

Burawoy applies the reflexive model of science to the research technique through whichempirical data is generated (participant observation) to produce the research method of the

extended case study. This reflexive approach to research is not based in a positivist procedural

notion of objectivity and rejects any attempt to detach the researcher from the research subjects

and process. Instead it premises itself on intersubjectivity and embraces an engagement with

the context effects that the positive approach eschews while acknowledging the power effects

that such engagement may generate. Dialogue not detachment is the central principle of the

reflexive approach and the ECM seeks to link up the micro-practices under observation with

the wider world through a process of dialogue at a range of levels.



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It is dialogical in each of its four dimensions. It calls for intervention of the observer in the life of theparticipant; it demands an analysis of interaction within social situations; it uncovers local processesin a relation of mutual determination with external social forces; and it regards theory as emergingnot only in dialogue between participant and observer, but also emerging among observers nowviewed as participants in a scientific community. (Burawoy, 2002, p. 16)

The ECM therefore begins as a dialogue between researcher and participants (intervention) andthen embeds this within a second dialogue between local and extra-local forces (process) while

exploring these relationships (structuration). This process can then be understood through a dia-

logue with theory itself (reconstruction). It is this process that we seek to operationalize in

relation to our investigation of specific instances of resistance to neoliberalism.

Engaged Ethnography in Action

Case Study 1: Sintraemcali and the Movement against Privatization in Colombia

Neoliberal structural reforms began in Colombia in the early 1990s and included the full

gamut of liberalization, decentralization and privatization. Neoliberalism takes placewithin the context of a highly charged internal civil war which has meant that its implementation

takes on a particularly notable militarized and violent form (Higginbottom, 2005). Since

1986 over 3,800 trade union activists have been assassinated and over 2 million people internally

displaced. Far right paramilitaries, closely linked to the Colombian state are responsible for the

vast majority of these assassinations and forced displacements (Human Rights Watch, 2000,

2001).

Despite the repression, resistance to neoliberal globalization has been robust, particularly in

relation to the privatization of public services. The focus of the research was on Sintraemcali, a

trade union based in the south-west of Colombia that had successfully resisted a series of

attempts by the national government to privatize water, electricity and telecommunications in

Colombias second city of Cali. The research centred on one particular, and successful,protest episode: the 36-day occupation of the Centro Administrativo Municipal (CAM)

Tower, their companys 17-floor central administration, that began on 25 December 2001.4

The occupation was triggered by the national governments decision to renew its attempts to

privatize Empresas Municipales de Cali (EMCALI), the local utility provider. During the course

of the 36-day occupation, tens of thousands of people went to meetings, joined marches, blocked

off roads, and engaged in political protest in defence of EMCALI as a state-owned public uti-

lities provider, with the vast majority drawn from the poorest neighbourhoods in the city.

This local activity was complemented by solidarity actions both in Bogota , the capital, and in

London. In Bogota, Sintraemcali workers and supporters occupied the headquarters of the

Superintendent of Public Services5 for 14 hours while local public service trade unionists

formed a protective cordon around the building. In London, pickets outside the Colombianembassy were organized on several occasions and two live video link-ups were made

between leaders of the British Trade Union Congress (TUC) and workers inside the occupation.

During key moments of the dispute, interventions were made either via letters to the Colombian

government and/or face-to-face meetings with Colombian diplomats by a range of internationaltrade union and social organizations. Furthermore, messages of solidarity for the occupation

were received by email from as far away as Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Novellis research set out to uncover the processes that had led to the emergence of this dynamic

resistance movement.



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What the research found was that during the previous five years the trade union had trans-

formed itself from a corporate trade union fighting for the particular interests of its

members to a social movement union that linked up poor community-based consumers and

trade unions and operated on a range of scales from the local to the global. Through reconcep-

tualizing trade union education, Novelli argued that this strategic transformation was a peda-

gogical process that had fundamentally altered the ethos of the organization. This strategicpedagogy had facilitated the development of a multi-scalar agenda that included: (1) an alterna-

tive economic strategy and blueprint for the efficient management of EMCALI, which led in

2001 to a situation of dual control within the company between workers and the state; (2) a

trade union/community alliance that linked local marginalized communities with organizedlabour; (3) a mobilization strategy that focused on occupations of strategic buildings and

mass mobilizations; and (4) a human rights strategy that accessed local, national and inter-

national legal and advocacy mechanisms facilitating Sintraemcalis ability to globalize opposi-

tion to privatization. This multi-scalar and multi-dimensional strategy provided a formidable and

comprehensive response to the material, discursive and military strategies of those social forces

attempting to push through the privatization of EMCALI.

Novelli saw the research as enabling him to act as both witness to the hidden story ofColombia, as part of a sociology of absences (Santos, 1999a) and to contribute towards trans-

forming the current state of affairseven if in only a small way. He had a very clear idea that the

research was a process rather than just a product, and that he wanted to contribute in some way to

the struggles of those people he was researching. From the outset he engaged in practical soli-

darity work (translating documents, organizing meetings, advocacy work) with sections of the

Colombian exile community based in London, UK and with trade union and political activists

in Colombia, alongside more theoretical work. He also became a founding member of the

Colombia Solidarity Campaign (CSC). These activities and contacts later led to involvement

with Sintraemcali and to one year of ethnographic fieldwork based in Cali, where he worked

and lived with union activists and actively participated in the 36-day occupation.

Upon arriving in Cali he set about carrying out whatever duties the trade union thought mightbe useful, while simultaneously seeking to develop greater background knowledge of the nature

of the relationship between neoliberal reforms, social movements and the state in Colombia.

During this early period, his role in Sintraemcali was to translate and transmit information

about the situation in Sintraemcali and their long struggle against privatization and he worked

his way through documents from 7am until late at night.

In the first few months many leading activists were sceptical of his presence there, particularly

those working in the human rights office of the union. His solution was just to keep working and

over the months they began to warm to him and to take him out with them whenever they went to

different parts of the city to gather data, interview the victims of human rights abuses and train

local activists. Very quickly he became immersed in the human rights situation in the city and

experienced a steep learning curve under the mentoring of the human rights team.As trust developed, Novelli became responsible for maintaining and expanding contacts with

a whole range of international trade union and human rights organizations. He gained experience

in working with a range of different community organizations and acted as a translator for

several delegations that came from the UK, Canada and the USA. He also had privileged

access to a range of meetings: the weekly meeting of the unions leadership, the regular meetings

of the Sintraemcali delegates from the different work sites, and the general workers assemblies.

This access proved crucial to the development of a comprehensive first-hand understanding of

the unions development and provided a solid basis upon which to build theory.



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In addition, Novelli was gathering crucial knowledge and information relating to the broader

context of the conflict between social movements and the state in Colombia, whilst learning this

from the perspective of those who were directly opposing the neo-liberal economic reforms as

they manifested themselves in Colombia. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, his own per-

sonal involvement and presence within the union resulted in a process of bonding between

himself and his colleagues, breaking down the barriers that existed between them. This trustwas solidified when he joined the occupation and this was the moment at which he felt fully

accepted as part of the movement. This was crucial in a situation of violent conflict such as

exists in Colombia, where state and para-state organizations attempt to undermine solidarity

between people through a politics of fear and suspicion. Sintraemcali itself has lost 17

members to assassination since the process of union transformation began in the mid-1990s.

From inside the occupation, Novelli set about documenting the event through writing a daily

eyewitness account that tried to inform the international community of what was going on.

This was distributed through the CSCs email list and also through a range of labour, human

rights and anti-globalization networks.6 At the same time he worked on translating key docu-

ments and urgent actions to be sent via the same networks at different times during the occu-

pation, liaising with various international labour representatives via email and phone. He alsotranslated directly from the CAM Tower the words of leaders and activists during several live

videoconferences between UK trade union leaders and Sintraemcali. When the occupation

ended, Novelli returned to England to talk at a range of meetings about the story of the occu-

pation which had garnered a great deal of interest amongst the British trade union movement

and the political left. Moving from Colombia to the UK allowed him to witness both sides of

the relationship of solidarity that had been built up.

Returning to Colombia in March 2003 he continued to work in the human rights department,

engage in a range of human rights training courses, and carry out interviews. It was also during

this period that he was involved in the production of a 30-minute video of the occupation which

was a crucial dialogical tool through which to engage with local leaders and activists and also a

mechanism through which international solidarity was built up. While the research project isnow completed, Novelli continues to work in solidarity with Sintraemcali and other social move-

ments in Colombia.

Case Study 2: The European Marches Network against Unemployment,

Job Insecurity and Social Exclusion

The origins of the EM Network were in the seismic movement against the social consequences

of European integration along neoliberal lines that found its epicentre in France. The strikes of

1995 mobilized millions of organized workers alongside organizations of marginalized groups

(les sans)7 and found international support with rallies in Rome, Athens and Berlin. These rallies

demonstrated the international character of the resistance to neoliberalism and the will tomobilize across borders. The proposal for a European March came from representatives of

the French unemployed association Agir Ensemble Contre le Chomage! (Act Together

Against Unemployment) and was eagerly taken up by grassroots unions and associations

across Europe. Although it was generally accepted that the strict convergence criteria for Euro-

pean Monetary Union were a major cause of economic and social problems, it was agreed to

focus the marches on the massive levels of unemployment (20 million) and poverty (60

million) in the European Union. The marches snaked their way across the Continent for two

months before converging in Amsterdam to head a 50,000 strong demonstration on the occasion



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of the EU summit meeting in June 1997. The EM Network has subsequently organized two

further marches to EU summit meetings in Cologne in 1999 and in Seville in 2002. It has

also convened several international gatherings under the title of European Assembly of the

Unemployed and Insecure Workers in Struggle. This event began in Cologne (1999) was

repeated in Paris (2000) and Brussels (2001), but more recently has taken place as part of the

European Social Forums (ESF) in Florence (2002), Paris (2003) and London (2004). Thebreadth and depth of support of the ESFs is an indication of the significance of the EM

Network as a campaigning organization that was paving the way for the formation of a

broader social movement out of the specific instances of resistance to neoliberalism. Its relative

success in mobilizing transnationally was, in part, due to its loose structure as a grassroots

network. This form of organization facilitated an in-depth dialogue between the grassroots acti-

vists and organizations that were at the forefront of mobilizing against the social consequences

of neoliberalism within nation states, thereby enabling the translation of demands and forms of

action across borders. Furthermore, the Network accommodated political differences so as to

begin to form a broader social movement critical of the current direction of European integration

and in favour of an alternative social Europe. This contrasts with organized labour, in the form of

the ETUC, that was tied organizationally and ideologically to the institutions of the EU therebyforming part of the elite consensus which limited its capacity to mobilize effectively around an

alternative to neoliberal Europe. This understanding of the EM Network was developed through

Mathers adopting a dual role as both activist and researcher and this was noted by participants in

the EM Network in that he was introduced to a meeting in Paris in September 1999 as an

activist-researcher (militant-chercheur).

Mathers first made contact with the EM Network when he participated in the demonstration in

Cardiff on the occasion of the EU summit meeting in May 1998. As well as attending demon-

strations and meetings across Europe in the following 18 months, he also began to organize in his

locality around the social questions raised by the EM Network. He helped to reactivate a clai-

mants group (Bristol Benefits Action Group), which mobilized around welfare reforms such

as the New Deal, and this led on to the formation of a group (Bristol Against CasualisationCampaign), which mobilizes around issues of job insecurity. Mathers therefore developed his

insights into the EM Network not only through observing and participating in events outside

the UK, but also by attempting to comprehend how the European dimension impacted on,

and could advance, the specific struggles in his locality.

Mathers found that his fieldwork interviews and participation in the European Assemblies actu-

ally reflected the process of exchange across borders occurring between militants. This entailed

sharing information about the specific content and consequences of neoliberal employment and

welfare policies as well as the specific forms of resistance that restructuring was producing.

During a workshop on welfare reforms he was asked to describe policies like the New Deal

that had been identified by the European Commission as an example of best practice for other

governments to emulate. His contribution sparked discussion with German activists especially,who invited him to visit and interview them at an unemployed centre in Oldenburg. Interviews

alerted him to a key issue concerning activists: to what extent were militant forms of action

prevalent in France and Italy actually translatable across borders? Like other militants, he

found that detailed discussion about actions such as acquiring goods from supermarkets or travel-

ling en masse on public transport without paying revealed that they were not amenable to simple

emulation due to differing political cultures. Nevertheless, such discussions served to demystify

the organization and deployment of direct action and led to an identification of common elements,

such as the humorous and theatrical dimensions, that assisted translation across borders.



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This was evident in Bristol, where the innovative decentralized European days of action

against Workfare called by the EM Network were translated first into a picket of a job centre

and later into an occupation of the office of the local Labour Party. This occupation was in

protest against the introduction of Employment Zones and involved the temporary transform-

ation of the office into an Enjoyment Zone. Party workers and officials were encouraged to join

activists in wearing party hats and playing party games as representations of agreement with theslogan of Less labour, More party. This event provided a concrete experience of how the Euro-

pean dimension was affecting mobilization in the locality. This was not only in terms of the

encouragement of forms of direct action, but also in that meetings and publicity material

included explicitly the role of the European Commission in advancing neoliberal policies. Acti-

vists and the wider public were also made aware of the existence of common European forms of

mobilization in support of Europeanized demands such as an end to Workfare and for a guaran-

teed income and other social rights.

It became evident to Mathers that such events facilitated through the EM Network were

playing an important role in producing a growing awareness of international networking by

the proponents of neoliberal policies and how this necessitated an internationalization of

opposition by those who experienced their social consequences. As one Belgian activist put itin an interview:

[T]his is something that goes on worldwide.[That] the EU is one of the key actors in what goes on inour lives everyday and it influences a great deal of what our future will be like if we let it. So I thinkwe would feel more isolated as we feel much stronger when we have a lot of other people telling usthat we are living the same shit and we are fighting the same shit. And we know we are right becauseeverybody else in the other countries are doing the same and thinking the same. Also it can help tocreate the resistance by having new ideas of how to fight.

Such statements assisted Mathers in developing a view that the EM Network was a

mechanism for communicating and thereby accelerating diverse practices of opposition to

neoliberalism across sectors of resistance and across national borders. However, he alsobecame aware, from both his activist and researcher perspective, that this was a willed

process. Leading activists were articulating explicitly a strategy seeking to mobilize a move-

ment from below that brought together at the European level activists engaged in organiz-

ations whose main concern were the issues of not only unemployment, job insecurity and

social exclusion, but also racism, environmental destruction and war.8 Moreover, this was

a self-consciously internationalist movement which was rooted in a diversity of specific

instances of resistance within nation states, but also targeted the transnational centres of

power.

Mathers academic evaluation of the EM Network was communicated through books,

articles and conference papers which were accompanied by more directly activist-oriented

writing.

9

These were by no means separate in that interviewees received copies of hiswork and, for example, activists from the EM Network participated in a session of an aca-

demic conference at which he was presenting his work. These liaisons were an expression of

a developing and ongoing relationship between Mathers and EM Network participants on the

dimensions of both researcher and activist. This led him to gain access to meetings and

attendance on actions of which he was either unaware or hitherto uninvited. However, his

presence at such events was not solely to collect data, but also to express his opposition

to a neoliberal Europe as well as support for a Different Europe. On occasions such as

at the EU summit in Nice, his solidarity was expressed by standing alongside his respondents



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as they faced up to rows of riot police making liberal use of tear gas. By so doing he gained

an appreciation of the unity amongst the diversity of participating organizations to add to his

experience of the joyful character of the lived internationalism of events such as the

Assemblies. He thereby enriched his experience of the EM Network as an activist as well

as as a researcher and learnt about it so as to produce knowledge for directly activist as

well as academic purposes.

Reflections on Researching Resistance to Neoliberalism

In this section we reflect upon our experiences of researching resistance to neoliberalism in

terms of the four dimensions of the ECM including a discussion of its possible power

effects: domination, silencing, objectification and normalization (Burawoy, 1998).

Intervention

Burawoy (1998, p. 14) asserts that researcher intervention is a virtue because it is through our

effects upon a social phenomenon that we can come to know it. The effects of our interventionsare not noise but music. Furthermore, he advises that the points of entry and exit can be par-

ticularly instructive moments of the research project. So it proved in our case studies, with a sig-

nificant contrast in terms of modes of intervention highlighting different forms of organization

operating in differing socio-political contexts. Novelli was faced with a climate of mistrust of

outsiders generated by the repressive nature of militarized neoliberalism in Colombia. Once

his credibility was established, he was able to experience the strong bonds of solidarity that

resistance in such an environment generated within organizations like Sintraemcali. Ending

his project raised the question of maintaining these bonds, an issue he addressed by continuing

his solidarity work. Mathers found little difficulty in gaining access as activists were keen to

engage him in discussion about the situation in the UK thereby suggesting to him the role of

the EM Network in facilitating an exchange of information and experiences of restructuringand resistance across borders. He also found much less interest in his political views than in

his campaigning work. This suggested to him that there existed a general strategic orientation

amongst activists and organizations to achieve the common task of constructing a campaigning

network to challenge neoliberalism at the European level, thereby overcoming at the inter-

national level a situation, so often evident at the national level, of organizations divided due

to political differences.

In terms of the power effect of domination, we were struck by the contrast between our

approaches and the model of intervention espoused by Alaine Touraine.10 We eschewed this

approach to intervention as a method of domination in which the sociologist takes the role of an

intellectual prophet (Papadakis, 1989) that seeks to raise the consciousness of activists through

analytical intervention from the outside. Our approach was to bridge the gap between academiaand activism by means of a democratic dialogue in the Third Space (Routledge, 1996) of critical

engagement. To this end we sought to develop relations of solidarity with participants that were not

only expressed as an abstract opposition to neoliberalism, but also developed through a series of

micro-practices such as contributing knowledge and skills, sharing personal and political experi-

ences and putting body and soul on the line. Therefore our approach to achieving a rapprochement

(Bourdieu, 2003) between researcher and activist was one which combined both ideological and

practical expressions of solidarity. These bonds of solidarity varied in character according to the

specific nature of each episode of resistance. In the context of militarized neoliberalism, the



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bonds developed by Novelli were akin to those amongst comrades whereas the ties developed by

Mathers, in the context of a looser networked organization, were similar to those established by a

companheiro (companion) (Scheper-Hughes, 1995).

This approach to intervention does not deny the elementary divergence in interests between

academics and activists (Burawoy, 1998, p. 23), but addresses this matter through practical engage-

ment in the Third Space which contributes to the movement while subverting and resisting thedemands made by academic institutions. This approach also maintains the possibility for intellec-

tuals to question the strategy and practices of the movements in which they are engaged. However,

this is approached more in terms of seeking answers to questions arising from the movement than in

supplying answers generated in the academy, thereby generating a process of mutual learning

commended by Bourdieu. In this sense, our intervention was an open-ended process of co-inves-

tigation which was based on a dialogical model of knowledge creation and popular intellectual-

ism that focused on critical problem solving not a banking model in which the researcher claims

to have the answers (Johnston and Goodman, 2006, pp. 2426).

Process

Burawoy (1998, pp. 1415) alerts us to how the ECM enables the researcher to discover thetacit knowledge that is embedded in social situations. Being movement participants enabled

us to generate situated knowledge (Johnston and Goodman, 2006) thereby demonstrating

the practical consciousness (Burawoy, 1998) of the activists that was developed and deployed

in the movement events. This can be seen most strikingly in the innovative occupations that used

activists knowledge and skills of how to enter and secure the occupied buildings. Occupations

were also designed creatively with cultural events (football, parties) to counter the fear engen-

dered by the presence of the police and the military and utilized new communication technol-

ogies to mobilize outside support. Such transfers of knowledge and skills through networks of

trust and solidarity have been identified by the World Bank (1998) as social capital, thereby

seeking to appropriate the vitality of grassroots networks for the private good of capital accumu-

lation (Fine, 2001; Navarro, 2002). This is particularly pertinent to networks of resistance associal movements have been identified as rich sources of cultural innovation, new elites and

institutional renewal (Melucci, 1989). However, our research projects suggest the potential

for subverting (Mayer and Rankin, 2002) the established research agenda of social capital

to identify in oppositional groups social processes that develop social capacity (Smith and

Kulynch, 2002) as the basis of an alternative form of development.

Burawoy (1998, p. 18) also encourages the extension of observations over time and place to

reveal the operation of how regimes of power structure situations into processes by making

use of resources (money, skill, education, prestige, etc) and schemas (norms, beliefs, the-

ories, etc). Our case studies of resistance demonstrated a tendency to reject routine processes

of political activity and the development of unconventional and empowering forms of politics.

However, it is important not to overstate this tendency as this would silence those elementsin Sintraemcali and in the EM Network that still operated according to established and more

formalized political procedures based on the pre-existing organizational structures. Neverthe-

less, aspects of the resistance, such as the utility reconnections and the subsequent community

mobilizations in Cali, deployed existing resources in new ways and also generated new

resources which in turn produced new alliances and organizational links which contributed

to the formation of a new regime of power within the union. The cross-border mobilization

through the EM Network generated new norms of internationalism which challenged

those prevailing in the existing transnational trade union structures.11 Our role as



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activist-researchers also meant that our participation involved the application of our

resources and schemas within the movements and that we became part of the new regimes

of power that started to emerge.

Structuration

Burawoy (1998, p. 15, original emphases) draws attention to the field which is external to theimmediate research site and requires us to delineate the social forces that impress themselves

upon the ethnographic locale. We simultaneously explored the processes of structuration

created by neoliberalism both in our own universities and in the research sites.

As Bourdieus work highlights, neoliberalism has recruited academics into producing knowl-

edge for the ends of the powerful and with initiatives such as the General Agreement on Trade in

Services (GATS) this will probably be accompanied increasingly by academic production for

profit. In this context, Santos call for knowledge as emancipation is a powerful antidote to

neoliberalism. It also suggests, as do our case studies, that the outputs of an engaged ethnogra-

phy cannot be merely for the alienated purposes of profit or (in the UK context) for the Research

Assessment Exercise (RAE).12

Therefore, we heeded Scheper-Hughes (1995) call for ethnogra-

phers to be shock troops and alarmists who produce texts that cut through the layers of accep-tance of injustice. As already mentioned, we produced materials in a variety of formats for both

academic and non-academic audiences that extended the process of research dissemination

beyond the academy, thereby following the example of Bourdieu in making the movement

more visible in the public sphere.

In our research sites, uncovering the structures through which the abstract processes of

neoliberal restructuring were advanced led both of us into an exploration of new forms of

domination and through this we were able to concretize how the practices of neoliberalism

were affecting the strategies of activist movements. This also led on to the identification of

the structures through which counter-hegemonic social forces were beginning to develop,

thereby making apparent new forms of Santos sociology of emergences. In the research

on Sintraemcali, Novelli highlighted two broad processes: transborderization and horizonta-lization as key elements of Sintraemcalis strategic development. Transborderization signified

the new geography of the trade unions activity, which transcended local and national bound-

aries. Horizontalization signified the new alliances forged between local poor communities,

campesinos, NGOs and international social actors that opposed privatization. These twin pro-

cesses were then linked back to two key macro-structural changes that have resulted from

neoliberal restructuring: the reorganization of capital on the global scale and the fragmenta-

tion of the working class.

Following Burawoys (1998, p. 19) advice to make each case work in its connection to other

cases, it is possible to identify similar processes operating through the EM Network which

played an important role in the development of common European actions in support of a Euro-

pean agenda of common demands. These were the expression of a strategy for moving beyondthe militant particularisms (Nilsen and Cox, 2005) of sectoral struggles within nation states in

an attempt to develop a social movement from below (ibid.) which would counterpoise its

emerging project for a Different Europe to the neoliberal project being advanced through

the EU. This analysis of the EM Network is influenced by the idea that the recomposition of pol-

itical relations in Europe has produced a new institutional set-up in the shape of the EU which

provides the structural environment for the development of new forms of agency (Bieler,

2005).13 However, as Burawoy (1998) notes, at this level of analysis the danger is of the objec-

tification of structures as all encompassing and all powerful. Therefore, central to our writing



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was not merely identifying the influence of the macro-level structures on the forms and strategies

of resistance, but also how they were actively contested and thereby reconstructed.14 This served

to highlight the open-ended nature of social structures and challenged the argument that There

Is No Alternative to neoliberalism in the contemporary era.

Reconstruction

Burawoy (1998) regards the researchers participation in the world as a tool to expand

knowledge and states that reflexive science builds on theory and utilizes the real world to test

out the usefulness of such theory. It is important to note, however, that theory is always for

someone and for some purpose (Cox, 1996, p. 87) and emerges out of a problematic

thrown up by particular historical conjunctures. In the present conjuncture, a central problematic

is the terrain upon which struggle is waged in an increasingly globalized world. Consequently,

both of us took as our starting point theorists that have sought to theorize this problematic. Cas-

tells (1997), for example, has been a highly influential proponent of the argument that globaliza-

tion fatally undermines the capacity of the labour movement to advance a progressive social

project. While accepting his central premise that economic globalization has increased capitalmobility whilst fragmenting labour, our case studies began to challenge both the inevitability

and the permanency of this process. In this sense, they follow Burawoys (1998, p. 24) advice

that challenging the normalization of theory can be achieved by embedding the analysis in

perspectives from below. This approach enabled us to go beyond sociological critiques of

the discourse of globalization as a myth (Bourdieu, 1998). Our research identified real instances

of Santos politics of translation by demonstrating how fragmented labour, grouped in different

collectivities (social movements, unions, community groups), has united under common

demands in the local and has linked up on a range of scales thereby forming transnational net-

works of solidarity that have mobilized to produce tangible material results.

Crucially, our case studies allowed us to avoid the simplistic notion of labour necessarily

going global because of capitals shift. Both studies highlighted that the nation state remainedan important terrain for labour mobilization, but that a range of other scales, both sub-national

and supranational, were also important terrains of struggle and contestation. This led Novelli to

engage with research in human and political geography which highlighted the way globalization

was de- and re-territorializing the terrain of struggle on which the capital/labour conflict wasplayed out (Herod, 2001). While different scales may well temporarily favour the interests of

capital (Harvey, 1989), there was nothing inevitable about this. Labour as a social movement

could change its practices and tacticsjust as capital hadand our case studies demonstrated

the emergence of new strategies and tactics for effective mobilization on these terrains.

Mathers research highlighted how the EM Networks circulation of best practices of resist-

ance across borders mirrored the functioning of the Open Method of Coordination (De la Porte

and Pochet, 2003) of national employment and social policies. In this sense, multi-level govern-ance (Hooghe and Marks, 2001) in the EU has provoked a response of multi-level mobilization

by certain labour organizations. However, although there is a degree of regionalization, the EU

retains a largely inter-governmental character that privileges the national terrain of struggle.

Therefore, while multi-level in form, the practices of the EM Network can be understood as a

nationally-based internationalism. This describes how successful national struggles depend

on others elsewhere also being in struggle: as inspirations, as experiments we need to critically

study and learn from, and to create enough international turmoil to limit the isolation of any par-

ticular struggle (Gindin, 2003). This analysis was communicated in papers and articles that



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were made available to activists and thereby met Burawoys (1998, p. 22) entreaty that in the

reflexive mode, social theory intervenes in the world it seeks to grasp.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we focus on two elements of engaged ethnography which give this article its title:solidarity and praxis. Firstly, ours is an ethically and politically committed approach to research

that is embedded within concrete instances of organized resistance to neoliberalism. At the

general level, our aim is to forge a relationship of mutual benefit between social science and

social movement based on solidarity and reciprocity. This is expressed concretely as a dialogical

process of academic engagement with those left out of the benefits of neoliberal globalization.

This can serve to enrich the strategic repertoire of social movements through intellectual

exchange and debate, strengthen progressive social theory by grounding it more firmly in the

everyday realities of resistance practices and, perhaps most importantly, construct bridges of

solidarity between social movements and the academy, as part of a politics of translation

(Santos, 1999) that can open up new possibilities and directions for social struggle as well as

for social research.Engaged ethnography challenges the conventional roles of relationships established by aca-

demics and generates new ones. The ethnographer does not stand outside the object of enquiry

thereby adopting the role of spectator, but stands alongside those engaged in struggle thereby

taking the role of witness and even active participant. In this sense, the ethnographer may find

many paths to ethical and political commitment, but each of them involves him/her in under-taking a variety of acts of solidarity (Scheper-Hughes, 1995). As a public intellectual this

may take the form of utilizing the privileged location of the academy to assist in making

visible the invisibility of marginalized social movements and by doing so strengthen their legiti-

macy in the public sphere. More straightforwardly, it may mean placing the practical and per-

sonal skills of the academic at the service of the social movement. As a critical intellectual,

the academic may express solidarity by nurturing a dynamic exchange of ideas with thesocial movement and by facilitating a link between different cases of resistance, enabling the

possibility of translation and the cross-fertilization of movement strategies.

While we believe that the ethical/solidarity dimension is an important part of our approach, wealso recognize that this alone is insufficient and that engaged ethnography, if it is to be taken

seriously, also needs to demonstrate its ability to provide powerful insights into processes of resist-

ance to neoliberalism. Our aim is to demonstrate how solidaristic forms of critical engagement can

generate and make visible new insights and new knowledges left hidden by more conventional eth-

nographic methods. Engaged ethnography, through processes of solidarity and trust building,

enabled privileged access to the experiences and perspectives of key actors and to the sites of

resistance in which they were embedded. This facilitated the construction of a rich and

complex picture of the local micro-processes of resistance and how the fabric of this resistancewas woven. This provided the foundation for extending outwards to the dimensions of process,

structuration and reconstruction. Reinserting our ethnographic observations within a framework of

political economy then facilitated our ability to begin to develop meso-level conceptual tools such

as horizontalization and transborderization which served as heuristic devices through which to

explore the way labour movements are constructing strategies that address the structural trans-

formations brought about by neoliberal globalization. In both of our studies we were able to docu-

ment and observe how two very different movements were addressing these fundamental aspects

of neoliberal globalization in very different ways so as to develop new forms of political activity



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(e.g. trade union/community alliances) and new forms of geographical practice (e.g. multi-scalarmobilizations). In doing so we were able to challenge the notion that capitals new-found mobility

inevitably left labour weakened and powerless to resist and thereby challenged a teleological

understanding of processes of neoliberal globalization. Our case studies highlighted how labour

too is operating and organizing on a range of geographical scales and is developing strategic alli-

ances with different social forces to strengthen its claims. Perhaps most importantly, we were ableto demystify these strategic and organizational developments through detailed cases highlighting

how these movements constructed and developed their strategic action.

While we do not want to suggest that engaged ethnography represents a template for

research on radical social movements we do feel that it goes some way towards addressing

the alienation felt by ourselves and other critical academics by facilitating the development

of bonds of solidarity and reciprocity between academia and social movements. Simultaneously,

and equally important, it also provides a rigorous and systematic approach to research that by

grounding itself in everyday struggles can reveal important insights into resistance processes

and develop new concepts and understandings that can inform better and more effective move-

ment strategies. Crucially, engaged ethnography provides one possible route for critical aca-

demics not only to interpret the world but also to try and change it: engaged ethnography aspraxis.

Notes

1 The debate over the role of theory goes right back to the founding fathers of sociology. Webers theory of action is

a theory of society which tends to naturalize the social relations which it seeks to explain (Clarke, 1991). Weberian

sociology therefore imposes society upon us as an ideal type, empirical instances of which it seeks to describe and

classify. It also generates dichotomies between facts and values and between intellectual and political activity,

thereby relegating the intellectual to an advisory role in solving social problems. Marx, in contrast, developed a

theory against society (Holloway, 1995, p. 156) which engaged in a logical and historical process of critique

of the categories of political economy. This approach resulted in the inseparability of critical theory and critical

revolutionary action (Korsch, 1970) that entailed a direct engagement of the intellectual in the process of socialand political change (Gramsci, 1972). For a Marxist critique of Webers value-free sociology see Lewis (1975).

2 For a discussion of what is ethnography see Hammersley and Atkinson (1995).

3 Harvey (1990: p. 11) argues that conventional ethnography is an inductive method that uses participant

observation to gather detailed information on human behaviour and meanings, which is data that can be used to

produce new generalizations about the social world. This is contrasted with critical ethnography, which

attempts to link the detailed analysis of ethnography to wider social structures and systems of power

relationships in order to get beneath the surface of oppressive structural relationships.

4 See Novelli (2004, 2006) for more in-depth analysis.

5 A Colombian government ministry that is responsible for the regulation and control of public services in Colombia.

6 An edited version of these accounts was later published by Public Services International (Novelli, 2002) in English

and Spanish.

7 Sanssans travail (without work), sans logement (without homes), sans papiers (without documents).

8 Information from interviews with prominent activists in the EM Network.

9 For more information about the EM Network and for writing for academic and activist audiences arising from theresearch project see Mathers (1999, 2001, 2005).

10 Touraine et al. (1983) formed intervention groups of anti-nuclear activists and researchers with the aim of the

conversion of supporters of anti-state protests to Touraines perspective of an anti-technocratic social

movement. Most militants rejected his analysis while some staged an elaborate hoax and others withdrew

amidst charges of manipulation. The researchers were left isolated and dejected, but still rejected outright the

activists proposal to use the intervention groups to discuss movement strategy.

11 For interesting explorations of the contrast between old and new internationalism see De Angelis (2000) and

Lambert and Webster (2005).

12 See Harvie (2000) for a critique of the RAE as a mechanism for marketizing research.



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13 Bieler (2005) argues that the EU is institutionally arranged so as to protect the neoliberal state form from popular

influence in the areas of economic and monetary policy. The European Marches are an attempt to reassert popular

influence on policy.

14 See Taylor and Mathers (2002) on the relationship between social movement mobilization and the construction of

the EU.

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Andrew Mathers is a Senior Lecturer at the University of the West of England, UK. Hisresearch focuses mainly on labour and social movements and their responses to processes

such as European integration and neoliberal globalization. He is currently researching into

recent developments in the formation of community unionism in the USA and the UK as

well as the crisis of social democratic forms of trade unionism in Western Europe. He has

written on the EM Network and the wider social movement of which it was a part in

Mathers, A. (2007) Struggling for a Social Europe: Neoliberal Globalisation, the EU and the

Birth of a European Social Movement (Aldershot: Ashgate).

Mario Novelli is a Lecturer in International Development at the University of Amsterdam. His

work explores the relationship between globalization, education and development and he has

published on issues of the global governance of education, critical ethnography, knowledge pro-duction in trade union movements and popular resistance to processes of privatization in Colom-

bia. He is currently carrying out research on the causes and responses to violence against the

education community in Colombia and co-writing a book on Globalisation, Labour and Knowl-

edge for a Routledge Series on Rethinking Globalization.



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neoliberal resistance

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