July 2020
Source: Journal Globalizations
Reclaiming democracy from below: from the contemporary state
capitalist system to peoples’ sovereignty
Globalizations Special Forum
Co-editors: Nora McKeon and Gonzalo Berrón
This Special Forum grows from a collective effort to assess the deep changes underway in the world in a dialogue between specific struggles on the ground to defend rights and territories and the dynamics of the global trends that impact on them all. Behind what can look like fragmented battles and constructions, we hypothesize, there is an increasingly consolidated common struggle and vision, just as a mosaic is composed of separate pieces that are unified into a composition. Based on exchanges in a workshop in Siena in October 2018, the Forum aims at putting together some of the pieces of the mosaic. The Introduction reviews other recent efforts towards convergence, looking at two related dimensions: sharing ideas and analysis in order to develop a common understanding of what is going on in the world, and bringing people together to take transformative action by building shared spaces, alliances and campaigns. The Siena workshop and the People’s Sovereignty process that has grown from it are situated in this broader context. The five articles that compose the Forum, built in dialogue between social movement, academic and civil society activists, are experiments in co-production of understanding, each of which takes forward a theme that aroused particular interest at Siena. Their special characteristic is the fact that they are the result of an exchange between experiences on the ground and a more theoretical lens, so the issues are discussed as they relate to concrete struggles. Additional articles on other themes will be coming.
Content:
1. Introduction – Nora McKeon and Gonzalo Berrón
2. Contextualizing corporate control in the agrifood and extractive sectors – Jennifer Clapp and Joseph Purugganan
3. Land, territory and commons: voices and visions from struggles – Tomaso Ferrando, Isa Alvarez, Molly
Anderson, Sophie Dowllar, Harriet Friedmann, Antonio Gonzalez, Chandra Maracle, Nora McKeon
4. Rethinking law from below: experiences from the Kuna People and Rojava – Felipe Bley Folly in dialogue with Manigueuigdinapi Jorge Stanley Icaza, Havin Guneser and others
5. Knowledge and education for people’s sovereignty – Molly Anderson and Priscilla Settee;
6. Releasing the full transformative power of feminism – Zdravka Dimitrova, Isa Álvarez, Sophie Dowllar, Havin Guneser
The People´s Sovereignty network is a collective and inclusive space open to communities, movements, organizations and people who are engaged in resisting corporate violence and constructing people’s sovereignty. The aim is to help build more and stronger links among social movements with different entry points to the same struggle and more effective and respectful collaboration between them and engaged academics. The network’s activities are collectively managed by the people who engage to carry them forward. Among these is a Web Lab, a space where social movement, civil society and academic activists can share experiences and ideas, undertake collective analyses, develop concepts, strategies and activities and engage with other existing solidarity networks and initiatives.
More information at www.peoples-sovereignty-lab.org.
