Grassroots (Economic) Activism in Times of Crisis: Mapping the Redundancy of Collective Actions


Abstract


In the current economic crisis of industrialized society, social movements face two types of challenges: firstly, they are confronting institutions that are less capable of and have no propensity for mediating new socio-economic demands; secondly, they are experiencing difficulties in building strong and lasting bonds of solidarity and cooperation among people. The latter are fundamental resources for the emergence of collective action; however, the highly individualized structure of contemporary society makes the creation of social ties ever the more difficult. As a consequence, contemporary waves of protest are often short-lived. Nonetheless, in response to the multidimensional crises, the consolidation of grassroots mutualistic and cooperative experiences, within which new affiliations for collective action are experienced, is on the rise. Indeed, it is a fact that even though conditions are not favorable, social movements have continued to ex-pand and promote community-led initiatives for social and economic sustainability. In some cases, these initiatives play a decisive role in the fight against poverty and in guaranteeing human livelihood. Solidarity-based exchanges and networks, such as barter groups, urban gardening, new consumer-producer networks and cooperatives, time banks, local savings groups, urban squatting, and others similar experiences are typical examples of continuous reactivation of people's desire to be agents of their own destiny. This combination of formal and informal networks are a testimony to an ability and an aspiration. Indeed, on one hand, they are indicative of citizens' capacity to self-organize in order to tolerate, absorb, cope with and adjust to the environmental and social threats posed by neoliberal policies. On the other hand, they are attempting to change an economic system, increasingly perceived as unfair and ecological disruptive, by building an alternative in the cracks of the former, based on greater mutual solidarity between individuals and more sustainable connections with the environment. This special issue is a reflection, among the many that have being proposed of late, on some of these self-organized collective actions that have pass through and/or emerged from the aftermath of the crisis. It is the result of an attempt to cross various disciplinary fields, in order to explore the redundancy of their respective explanations as to why and how some grassroots activities last and succeed, and turn this redundancy into the powerhouse for relaunching more robust and less aleatory initiatives.

DOI Code: 10.1285/i20356609v8i2p328

Keywords: Resilience; Collective action; Degrowth; Sustainable Community Movement Organizations (SCMOs); Commons

References


Anguelowski I. (2014), Urban Gardening, In D’Alisa G., Demaria F., Kallis G. (eds.), Degrowth. A vocabulary for a new era, London: Routdledge.

Armiero M. and D’Alisa G. (2012), “Rights of Resistance: The Garbage Struggles for En-vironmental Justice in Campania”, Italy, Capitalism Nature Socialism, 23(4): 52-68.

Bateson G. (2000), Verso un’ecologia della mente. Milano: Adelphi.

Bolier D. (2014), Think like a commoner, Gabriola Island: New Society Publisher.

Bosi L. and Zamponi L. (2015), “Direct Social Action and economic crisis: The relation-ship between forms of action and socio-economic context in Italy”, Partecipazione e Conflitto, 8(2): 367-391.

Caggiano M. and De Rosa S. P. (2015), “Social economy as antidote to criminal econo-my: How social cooperation is reclaiming commons in the context of Campania’s environmental conflicts”, Partecipazione e Conflitto, 8(2): 503-554.

Campbell H. (2009), “Breaking new ground in food regime theory: corporate environ-mentalism, ecological feedbacks and the ‘food from somewhere’ regime?”, Agriculture and Human Values, 26: 309-319.

Camps-Calvet M., Langemeyer J., Calvet-Mir L., Gómez-Baggethun E. and March H. (2015), “Sowing resilience and contestation in times of crises. The case of urban gardening movements in Barcelona”, Partecipazione e Conflitto, 8(2): 417-442.

Cangelosi E. (2015), “Reshaping spaces & relations. Urban gardening in a time of crisis”, Partecipazione e Conflitto, 8(2): 392-416.

Carabellese M. and Maurano S. (2013), Conflitti ambientali come spunti di democratizzazione? Partecipazione e capitale sociale in Campania, in Burini F. (ed.), Partecipa-zione e governance territoriale. Dall'Europa all'Italia, Milano: FrancoAngeli.

Castells M., Caraçao J. and Cardoso G. (eds.) 2012, Aftermath. The culture of economic crises, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Cattaneo C., S. Engel-Di Mauro (2015), “Urban squats as eco-social resistance to and resilience in the face of capitalist relations. Case studies from Barcelona and Rome”, Partecipazione e Conflitto, 8(2): 343-366.

Collettivo Pagine Arcobaleno (2004), Da consumatore critico a cittadino critico, Napoli: Pagine Arcobaleno di Napoli e dintorni.

Conill J., Castells M., Cardenas A., Servon L. (2012), Beyond the crisis: alternative economic practices in Catalonia. In Castells M., Caraçao J. and Cardoso G. (eds.), After-math. The culture of economic crises. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

D’Alisa G. (2013), “Bienes comunes: las estructura que connectan”. Ecología Política, 45: 30-41.

D’Alisa G. and Matiucci C., (2013) Commons – Practices, boundaries and thresholds, Lo Squaderno. Explorations in Space and Society No. 30 – December. www.losquaderno.professionaldreamers.net/?p=1498

D’Alisa G., Demaria F. and Cattaneo C. (2013), “Civil and Uncivil Actors for a Degrowth Society”, Journal of Civil Society, 9 (2): 212–224.

D’Alisa G., Demaria F. and Kallis G. (eds.) (2014a), Degrowth. A

vocabulary for a new era. London: Routdledge.

D’Alisa G., Kallis G. and Demaria F. (2014b). From austerity to dépense. In D’Alisa G., Demaria F. and Kallis G. (eds.), Degrowth. A vocabulary for a new era. London: Routdledge.

D'Alisa G., Burgalassi D., Healy H. and Walter M. (2010), “Conflict in Campania: Waste Emergency or Crisis of Democracy”, Ecological Economics, 70: 239–249

De Angelis M. (2007), The Beginning of History: Value Struggles and Global Capital, London: Pluto.

De Angelis M. (2013). “Does the capital needs a commons fix?”, Ephemera: theory & politics in organization, 13(3): 603-615.

Demaria F., Schneider F., Sekulova F. and Martinez-Alier J. (2013), “What is degrowth? From an activist slogan to a social movement”. Environmental Value 2 (2): 191-215.

Forno F. (2013), "Co-operative movement" in D. A. Snow, D. Della Porta, B. Klander-mans, and D. McAdam (eds.), Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social and Political Movements, Oxford, Blackwell publishing: 278-280.

Forno F. (2014), “Tra resilienza e resistenza. L’emergere delle pratiche economiche alternative”, in Altetri L. e Raffini L. (eds.), La nuova politica. Mobilitazioni, movimenti e confitti in Italia, Napoli, EdiSes: 71-90.

Forno F. and Graziano P. (2014), “Sustainable community movements organizations”, Journal of Consumer Culture, 14 (2): 139-157.

Forno F., Grasseni C., and Signori S. (2013), “Oltre la spesa. I Gruppi di Acquisto Solidali come laboratori di cittadinanza e palestre di democrazia”, Sociologia del lavoro, 4: 136-152.

Goodman M.K. and Sage C. (eds.) (2014), Food Transgressions. Making Sense of Con-temporary Food Politics. London: Ashgate.

Grasseni C. (2013), Beyond Alternative Food Networks: Italy’s Solidarity Purchase Groups, London: Berg/Bloomsbury Academic.

Grasseni C. (2014), “Seeds of trust: alternative food networks in Italy” Journal of Political Ecology, 21: 178-92.

Grasseni C., Forno F., and Signori S. (2015), “Beyond Alternative Food Networks: In-sights from Italy’s Solidarity Purchase Groups and US Community Economies”, in P. Utting (ed.), Social and Solidarity Economy: Beyond the Fringe?, London: Zed Books: 185-201.

Graziano P.R. and Forno F. (2012), “Political consumerism and new forms of political participation: The Gruppi di Acquisto Solidale in Italy”, The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, vol. 644: 121-133.

Guidi R. and Andretta M. (2015), “Between resistance and resilience. How do italian solidarity purchase groups change in times of crisis and austerity?”, Partecipazione e Conflitto, 8(2): 443-477.

Hardt M. and Negri A. (2009), Commonwealth. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press.

Harvey D. (2003), The New Imperialism, Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Itçaina X. and Gomez A. (2015), “Territorial identity and grassroots economic activism. The politicization of farmers’ mobilizations in the French Basque Country”, Partecipazione e Conflitto, 8(2): 478-503.

Kallis, G., Martinez-Alier J. and R. Norgaard (2009), “Paper assets, real debts: An ecological economic exploration of the global economic crisis”, Critical Perspectives on International Business, 5 (1/2): 14-25.

Keck M. and Sakdapolrak P. (2013), “What is Social Resilience? Lessons Learned and Ways Forward”, Erdkunde 67(1): 5-19.

Oliveri F., “A network of resistances against a multiple crisis. SOS Rosarno and the ex-perimentation of socio-economic alternative models”, Partecipazione e Conflitto, 8(2): 504-529.

Orozco A. (2010), “Crisis multidimensional y sostenibilidad de la vida”, Investigaciones Feministas. 1: 29-53.


Full Text: PDF

Refbacks

  • There are currently no refbacks.
کاغذ a4
Bookmark and Share


Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribuzione - Non commerciale - Non opere derivate 3.0 Italia License.