This paper explores militant ethnography as research method and political praxis based on my experience as activist and researcher among anti-corporate globalization movements in Barcelona. What is the relationship between ethnography and political action? How can we make our work relevant to those with whom we study? Militant ethnography is a politically engaged and collaborative form of participant observation carried out from within rather than outside of grassroots movements. Traditional objectivist perspectives fail to grasp the concrete logic of activist practice, leading to inadequate accounts and theoretical models of little use to activists themselves. Meanwhile, the classic figure of the organic intellectual has become increasingly undermined, as contemporary activists produce and circulate their own analyses through global communication networks in real time.
Militant ethnography breaks down the distinction between observer/intellectual and activist/practitioner. By organizing protests and gatherings, facilitating meetings, participating in strategic and tactical debates, and putting one’s body on the line during mass direct actions, militant ethnographers can better understand complex movement dynamics, while remaining active political subjects. Rather than generate sweeping political directives, collaboratively produced ethnographic knowledge aims to facilitate ongoing activist (self-) reflection about movement goals, tactics, strategies, and organizational forms. At the same time, there is often a marked contradiction between the moment of research and the moment of academic writing, publishing, and distribution, which involve vastly different systems of rewards and incentives. Indeed, the horizontal networking logic associated with anti-corporate globalization movements represents a serious challenge to the institutional logic of academia itself. Militant ethnographers must constantly negotiate such dilemmas, while moving back and forth among different sites of writing, teaching, and research.
Grasping the Logic of Activist Practice
The practice of militant ethnography is partially meant to address what Loic Wacquant in his discussion of Bourdieu’s reflexive sociology (Bourdieu and Wacquant 1992: 39) calls the “intellectual bias,” or the way our position as outside observer “entices us to construe the world as a spectacle, as a set of significations to be interpreted rather than as concrete problems to be solved practically.” The tendency to position oneself at a distance and treat social life as an object to decode rather than entering into the flow and rhythm of ongoing social interaction hinders out ability to understand social practice, as Bourdieu (1977) suggests:
The anthropologist’s particular relation to the object of his study contains the makings of a theoretical distortion inasmuch as his situation as an observer, excluded from the real play of social activities by the fact that he has no place…inclines him to a hermaneutic representation of practices (1; cited in Paley 2001: 18).
In order to grasp the concrete logic that generates specific practices, researchers have to become active participants. With respect to social movements, this means precisely becoming engaged activists: helping to organize actions and workshops, facilitating meetings, weighing in during strategic and tactical debates, staking out political positions, and putting ones’ body on the line during mass direct actions. Simply taking on the role of “circumstantial activist” (Marcus 1995) is not sufficient; one has to build long-term relationships of mutual commitment and trust, become entangled with complex relations of power, and live the emotions associated with direct action organizing and transnational networking.
The kind of engaged ethnographic practice not only allows researchers to remain active political subjects, it also generates more penetrating analyses. In her study of everyday violence in a poverty-stricken shantytown in Northeastern Brazil, for example, Nancy Scheper-Hughes describes how she was coaxed into political organizing by her Bahian informants:
The more my companhieras gently but firmly pulled me away from the ‘private’ world of the wretched huts of the shantytown, where I felt most comfortable, and toward the ‘public’ world of the Municipio of Bom Jesus da Mata, into the marketplace, the mayor’s office and the judge’s chambers, the police station and the public morgue, the mills and the rural union meetings, the more my understandings of the community were enriched and theoretical horizons were expanded (1995: 411).
Scheper-Hughes refers to such ethically grounded and politically committed research as “militant anthropology,” which effectively captures the active and engaged style of ethnographic practice outlined here. At the same time, her subsequent call for a “barefoot anthropology” veers perilously close to paternalism, while her emphasis on “witnessing” differs from the kind of active struggle together with the women of Bom Jesus chronicled in the passage above. I thus refer to ethnographic research that is politically engaged and collaborative in nature as “militant ethnography,” which recognizes the influence of Scheper-Hughes, while distinguishing it from her somewhat differing conception. Moreover, the broader emphasis on ethnography also moves it beyond the exclusive realm of anthropology.
Beyond the purely cognitive dimension, militant ethnography also generates practical embodied and affective understanding. As anyone who has participated in a mass direct action can attest, these events generate extremely high levels of emotional energy, involving alternating sensations of tension, anxiety, fear, terror, collective solidarity, expectation, celebration, and joy. Such affective dynamics are not incidental; they are central to sustained processes of movement building and activist networking. In this sense, the ethnographer’s body actually becomes a research tool (cf. Parr 2001). Indeed, as Margaret Meade once pointed out, “In matters of ethos, the surest and most perfect instrument of understanding is our own emotional response, produced that we can make a disciplined use of it (cited in Jacknis 1988: 172).”
A Tale from the Field
My own research explores the cultural logic and politics of transnational networking among anti-corporate globalization activists based in Barcelona. I am interested in how transnational networks like Peoples Global Action or the World Social Forum are built and constructed, and how activists generate emotional energy, while physically representing alternative networks through embodied political praxis during mass direct actions. Through militant ethnography I hope to shed light on the concrete processes through which activists can build more effective and sustainable movement networks. My specific project thus involved long-term participant observation with the international working group of the Barcelona-based Movement for Global Resistance (MRG), a broad network involving squatters, Zapatista support activists, anti-debt campaigners, radical ecologists, and other collectives. Between June 2001 and September 2002, I actively participated in action planning and coordination around mobilizations in Barcelona, Genoa, Brussels, Madrid, and Seville, while I had previously taken part in mass actions in Seattle, Los Angeles, and Prague. Moreover, since MRG was a European convener of PGA and many activists were also actively involved in the Social Forum process, I was also able to help organize PGA and WSF-related gatherings in Barcelona, Leiden, and Porto Alegre.
A concrete example from my field notes can help shed light on the meaning and practice of militant ethnography. At the end of a July 1 march against police brutality in Barcelona, a Milan-based activist from the Italian White Overalls took the microphone and announced the coming siege of the G8 summit. After describing the Genoa Social Forum and the pact that had been made with the city, he enthusiastically called on all Catalan and Spanish activists to make the trip, exclaiming in the spirit of musician and anti-globalization favorite Manu Chao, “Next Stop: Genoa!” Tend days later, two Americans, an Israeli, 7 Catalans and I were discussing our police evasion strategy on a regional train we had skipped through southern France. As we pulled into Genoa, the Italian police were out patrolling in force. Although we had done nothing wrong, our hearts began to pound when we left the train. The paranoid feeling of being under constant surveillance would remain with us during our entire time in Italy.
We spent our first few days sleeping in a squatted social center nestled in the hills on the outskirts of town, where we met up with many PGA-inspired activists. Ricardo, a well-known solidarity activist and squatter from Germany had been among the first internationals to arrive, and was frustrated about how difficult it had been to coordinate with the Genoa Social Forum, the main body planning the protests in Genoa. He was extremely eager to fill us in an elicit some more support for building a strong radical “international:” contingent.
The most troubling aspect for Ricardo was that the GSF had not created any channels of communication with the militant anarchists, largely due to the Forum’s strict “non-violence” stance. The dominant political forces within the GSF- the White Overalls, NGOs, ATTAC, radical labor unions and Refundazione, the reformulated Communist party- were characterized by autonomous Marxist, socialist, and social-democratic perspectives and the use of strictly non-violent tactics. On the other hand, the guiding political ethos among decentralized grassroots networks like PGA or MRG is broadly anarchist, at least in the sense of horizontal networking and coordination among diverse autonomous groups. This networking logic also holds for the question of violence versus non-violence, where a “diversity of tactics” position generally prevails. For radical anti-capitalists like Ricardo, even those who would never engage in violent tactics, the important thing is to establish dialogue and coordination among all groups, regardless of the tactics they choose. The strict non-violence position of the GSF, along with their perceived unwillingness to communicate with groups outside their direct action guidelines, was thus perceived as a major obstacle to overcome through the mediation of the radical internationals.
Over the next week I became deeply embroiled in the complex discussions, debates, and negotiations that ultimately led to the creation of the Pink and Pink & Silver contingents during the main days of action, building on our previous experiences in Prague. Not only did we have to generate consensus regarding the wisdom of joining the more militant squatters, whether self-defense constituted an acceptable response to police provocation, or the specific protest route to follow, we also had to negotiate with the GSF and other international networks in order to carve out sufficient space for our action within an increasingly crowded urban terrain involving diverse tactical forms, such as white overalls, black block, festive pink block, and traditional Ghandian civil disobedience.
There is insufficient time here for a full ethnographic account of the space of terror that subsequently emerged in Genoa (see Juris 2004). Rather, I want to simply point out that it was only by becoming deeply involved in the direct action planning process, which at times meant positioning myself at the center of extremely intense and sometimes personalized debates, that I could fully appreciate the complexity and logic of direct action planning and the accompanying fear, passion, and exhilaration. Moreover, it was only through engaged participation that I began to realize how diverse activist networks physically express their contrasting political visions and identities through alternative forms of direct action. Tactical debates were thus about much more than logistical coordination; they embodied the broader cultural politics that are so important to activist networking and movement building. Learning how to successfully negotiate differences on the tactical plane would thus serve to help build more sustainable networks more generally.
At the same time, the overwhelming campaign of low-level state terror unleashed by the Italian state also points to some of the potential limitations of the “diversity of tactics” logic. If rather than dividing and conquering, the state pursues and indiscriminate strategy of physical repression it becomes impossible to safely divide up the urban terrain. In particular contexts, such as the upcoming RNC protests in New York, for example, it might make sense to actively dissuade other activists from using militant black block styles and tactics. However, blanked condemnations of protests “violence,” including the widely circulated statements by Susan George after Gothenburg and Genoa, are not likely to produce the desired effect largely because they violate the basic networking logic at the heart of contemporary anti-corporate globalization movements. Rather, it I sonly through dialogue and immanent critique based on solidarity and respect that such contentious issues can be resolved. At its best, militant ethnography can thus provide a mechanism for shedding light on contemporary networking logics and politics, while also making effective interventions into ongoing activist debates.
Specifying Militant Ethnography
If ethnographic methods driven by political commitment and guided by a theory of practice largely break down the distinction between researcher and activist during the moment of fieldwork, the same cannot be said for the moment of writing and distribution. Indeed, one has to confront vastly different systems of standards, awards, selection, and stylistic criteria, as Paul Routledge (1996) suggests:
When it comes to researching resistance, there has traditionally been what de Certeau (1984: 24-25) refers to as a gap between the time of solidarity and the time of writing. The former is marked by docility and gratitude toward one’s hosts, while the latter reveals the institutional affiliations, and the intellectual, professional, and financial profit for which this hospitality is objectively the means (402).
A brief anecdote from my own experience illustrates some of the stakes involved. In January 2004, some of my former MRG-based colleagues organized a conference in Barcelona to explore the theory and practice of what they called “activist research.” The idea was to create an open space for reflection and debate among those conducting research from within and for social movements, self-managed political projects, and others situated inside the academy.
During one session, a British activist mounted a harsh attack on academics studying movements from the outside. He was somewhat appeased when we explained that we were using engaged methods, but he remained skeptical about how the research would be used, pointing out that, “You go back to the university and use collectively produced knowledge to earn your degrees and gain academic prestige. What’s in it for the rest of us?”
For the militant ethnographer the issue is not so much the kind of knowledge produced, which is always practically engaged and collaborative, but rather, how is it presented, for which audience, and where is it distributed? These questions go to the very heart of the alternative network-based cultural logics and political forms more radical anti-corporate globalization activists are generating and putting into practice. Addressing them responds not only to the issue of ethical responsibility toward one’s informants, colleagues, and friends; it also sheds light on the nature of contemporary movements themselves.
Part of the issue has to do with how we understand the figure of the intellectual. Barker and Cox (2002) have recently explored differences between academic and movement theorizing. These authors present a critique of traditional objectivist theories that are about rather than for movements, partly explaining the differences in terms of the distinction between “academic” and “movement” intellectuals, which corresponds to Gramsci’s “traditional” and “organic” varieties: the former operate according to the interests of dominant classes, while the latter both emerge from within and work on behalf of subordinate groups. However, not only does this distinction often break down in practice, which the authors recognize; beyond that, it seems to me that the relationship between activists and intellectuals within contemporary anti-corporate globalization movements is more complex. Indeed, when nearly everyone engages in theorizing, self-publishing, and instant distribution through global networks, the traditional function of the organic intellectual- providing strategic analysis and political direction- is undermined. In this sense, militant ethnography does not offer programmatic directives about what activists should or should not do. Rather, by providing critically engaged and theoretically informed analyses generated through collective practice, militant ethnography can provide tools for ongoing activist (self-) reflection and decision-making, while remaining relevant for broader academic audiences.
Anthropologists have recently proposed specific strategies for making ethnography useful for activists, which can be incorporated into a broader praxis for militant ethnography. Working with U.S.-based direct action activist, for example, David Graeber (2004) similarly notes the embattled role of the traditional vanguard intellectual, positing ethnography as a potential alternative, which would involve “teasing out the tacit logic or principles underlying certain forms of radical practice, and then, not only offering the analysis back to those communities, but using them to formulate new visions (335).” In this register, ethnography becomes a tool for collective reflection about activist practice and emerging utopian imaginaries.
Julia Paley (2001) enacts another kind of critically engaged ethnography, working with urban community groups in Chile to analyze power relations and political processes that shape and constrain their strategic options at particular historical junctures. In this mode, ethnography becomes a tool for collective analysis about the outside world. Finally, in his study of gender, race, religion, and grassroots Afro-Brazilian movements, John Burdick (1998) suggests that ethnography can help movements represent themselves in order to capture the social and cultural heterogeneity among mobilized and non-mobilized constituencies. Militant ethnography can thus help activists carry out their own ethnographic research.
For Burdick, this means supporting movements in their efforts to reach out to a broader public. But it might also suggest working with activists to help them analyze different movement sectors, understand how they operate, their goals and visions, and how they can most effectively work together. In my own case, for example, I spent hours talking to MRG-based colleagues about diverse movement sectors in Barcelona and elsewhere and how they might best coordinate through flexible, decentralized structures. We held similar conversations about regional and global networking processes. In this sense, transnational activist networking always already involves a form of militant ethnography, while militant ethnography among contemporary local/global movements necessarily requires the practices of transnational networking.
In sum, militant ethnography thus involves at least three interrelated modes:
1) collective reflection and visioning about movement practices, logics, and emerging cultural and political models; 2) collective analysis of broader social processes and power relations that affect strategic and tactical decision-making; and 3) collective ethnographic reflection about diverse movement networks, how they interact, and how they might better relate to broader constituencies. Each of these levels involves engaged, practice-based, and politically committed research that is carried out in horizontal collaboration with social movements. Resulting accounts involve particular interpretations of events produced with the practical and theoretical tools at the ethnographer’s disposal, and offered back to activists, scholars, and others for further reflection and debate.
Conclusion: The Politics of Positionality
Finally, the question remains as to the most appropriate context for practicing militant ethnography and how to distribute the results. One obvious place is the academy, which despite increasing corporate influence and institutional constraints, continues to offer a critical space for collective discussion, learning, and debate. Indeed, as Scheper-Hughes (1995) suggests, those of us within the academy can use academic writing and publishing as a form of resistance, working within the system to generate alternative politically engaged accounts. Moreover, as Routledge (1996: 400) points out, there are no “pure” or “authentic” sites, as academia and activism both “constitute fluid fields of social action that are interwoven with other activity spaces.” Routledge thus posits an alternative “third space,” “where neither site, role, or representation holds sway, where one continually subverts the other.” The more utopian alternative is suggested by the rise of multiple networks of autonomous research collectives and free university projects, including the “activist research” conference cited above. In my own case, by examining the cultural logics, networking activities, and utopian imaginaries within contemporary anti-corporate globalization movements, I hope to contribute to both academic and activist spheres through exploring, as the Argentine Colectivo Situaciones puts it, “the emerging clues of a new sociability within concrete practices (2001: 39).”
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