Social movements: does activism lead to emancipation?

Movimientos sociales: ¿el activismo genera emancipación?

Abstract

Alain Touraine’s theory on social movements (SMs) characterizes them as having their own collective identity, a defined opponent, and a dispute between these two opponents. This paper considers that Touraine’s theory on SMs does not contemplate their main motto: Emancipation. It is believed that Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ ideas can contribute to identifying SMs with emancipatory potential. To make these concepts concrete, examples of SMs are presented in Brazil and worldwide and analyzed in light of the two cited theories.

Keywords:
Social Movements; Emancipation; Boaventura de Sousa Santos; Alain Touraine

Resumen

La teoría de Alain Touraine sobre los movimientos sociales (MS)los caracteriza por tener una identidad colectiva propia, oponente definido y una apuesta disputada por estos dos oponentes. La tesis de este artículo es que la teoría de Touraine sobre los MS no incluye el lema principal de los MS: la emancipación. En este sentido, se considera que las ideas de Boaventura de Sousa Santos pueden contribuir a identificar los MS con potencial emancipador. Como forma de materializar estos conceptos, se presentan ejemplos de MS en Brasil y en el mundo, utilizando las dos teorías mencionadas.

Palabras clave:
Movimientos sociales; Emancipación; Boaventura de Sousa Santos; Alain Touraine

Resumo

A teoria de Alain Touraine sobre os Movimentos Sociais (MS) os caracteriza por possuírem uma identidade coletiva própria, adversário definido e uma aposta disputada por estes dois adversários. Este artigo tem como tese que a teoria de Touraine sobre MSs não contempla em si o seu lema principal: a Emancipação. Nesse sentido, acredita-se que as ideias de Boaventura de Sousa Santos podem contribuir para identificar MSs com potencial emancipatório. Como forma de ilustrar estes conceitos, são apresentados exemplos de MSs no Brasil e no mundo, analisando-os à luz das teorias citadas.

Palavras-chave:
Movimentos Sociais; Emancipação; Boaventura de Sousa Santos; Alain Touraine

INTRODUCTION

The theories on Social Movements (SMs) have as their main theorist Alain Touraine. Touraine (1978) considers that the Traditional Class Struggle SM (TSM) defends the workers’ possession of the means of production in order to improve their material living conditions. In contrast, the 1960’s and beyond (that he called as New Social Movements - NSM) consist of identitarian and humanitarian guidelines identified by three characteristics: (1) they have their own collective identity; (2) have a defined opponent and (3) have an object of dispute between the two opponents (Touraine, 1978).

This article has as thesis that the characteristics mentioned do not contemplate in themselves the main motto of SM: Emancipation. In this sense, it is believed that Boaventura de Sousa Santos’ ideas may contribute to identify SM with emancipatory potential. As a way of presenting concrete cases of those concepts regarding the SMs, some examples of them around the world are compiled. The following section presents the main contributions on SM.

MAIN THEORIES ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS

Touraine (1978) defined the Social Movements (SM) as the collective action of actors with great power in society and actors present in class struggles in search of a Historicity in the social direction. For the author, the Historicity is constituted by majoritarian cultural orientations by which society normatively organizes its relations with its environment. In his view, the functioning of society is governed by Historicity, its social relations and its SMs. The SMs are not only reactions to situations, but also act actively to produce them (Touraine, 1984b).

He places NSMs as the center of sociological analysis, rather than Traditional Social Movements (TSM). For Touraine (2004a), the study of social movements gained momentum in the 1960s due to movements in the US in favor of Civil Rights, against the Vietnam War, and other contemporary SMs around the world. He argues that NSMs are at the “heart of social life” (Touraine, 1978, p. 99) because they create conflicts, institutions, and new social relationships (Touraine, 1965). Furthermore, Touraine (1984a) stated that when one wants to analyze society considering its complexity and the nature of the forces that can transform it, one must have as its central elements the Historicity and the SMs.

Touraine (1985) stands head-on against TSM and against classical sociology, that works with prevailing theories of action in economically developed western societies (Parsons & Shils, 1951).

Touraine (1978) understands that society is modified by the dialectic between two opposing forces: one that transforms Historicity into organization, in order to consolidate it into the form of order and power; the other breaks this order constituted through Cultural Orientations and conflicts. In the second case, these manifest themselves in the form of Cultural Innovations and SM. In terms of Historicity, Touraine (1965) considers that SM isolated from their contexts cannot be analyzed, as they are part of a system of political relations, that is, Social Relations of power that contribute to modify society itself. In consequence, the author argues that the analysis of the SM must be based on the historical context to which the SM belongs.

Touraine (1978) argues that, in the context of industrial societies, TSM used to mobilize when the dominant political and economic regime threatened the cultural and physical existence of their participants. The author argues that in the contemporary context of deepening economic differences between central and emerging countries, there has been an increase in mobilization trends via NSM. They differ from TSMs, because TSMs seek to seize State power, while the NSMs seek to lead Historicity processes via identitarian and cultural agendas.

Touraine (1984b) considers that the NSMs have demonstrated the fragility, contradictions, and conflicts in the dominant economic order, conventionally considered hegemonic, self-dominant and secure of their profits and privileges. He defines SMs as Social Conflicts in which the Social Control of the main Cultural Patterns, that is, the norms governing social relationships are at stake (Touraine, 1985). He believes that, in order to change the situation, the intention needs to be transformed into Collective Action, otherwise the SM breaks down (Touraine, 1978).

Moreover, Touraine (1992) argues that, unlike TSMs, NSMs seek to be internally democratic and self-managing. More broadly, the NSMs do not intend to modernize society in an evolutionary and uniquely defined way, but present alternative ways of life and, in Touraine’s view (1978), constitute themselves as the main agents of Social Change in democratic societies.

At the individual level, Touraine (1992) believes that NSMs constitute the main defenses of the subject, in the form of Collective Action against the market, workplaces and the State, characterized by their impersonality in terms of power and regulations. Furthermore, he argues that NSMs protect the right of every individual or Social Group to choose and build their own existence, and defend, if they wish, the Cultural Heritage, language, beliefs, creations and hopes that constitute the history and culture of their original peoples.

This is consistent with the position of Touraine (1974), who considered that the NSMs merged within themselves the anti-capitalist class movements against foreign domination and pro-modernization and national integration. Without NSMs, Touraine (1992) argues, subjects may fall, on the one hand, into individual alienation and, on the other, into the conformation of individuality to the society’s historical direction. As a collective solution, each SM must respect the freedom and responsibility of its component subjects, promoting in each one their self-esteem and virtues in order to foster the transformation of subjects into social actors.

Since his earlier works, Touraine considers that SM are constituted by three principles: Identity, Opponent and Bet (Enjeu), that is, what is at stake in the struggle between the movement and his opponent (Touraine, 1978, 2006). However, these NSM principles are only guiding principles for analysis and cannot be used as absolute criteria, because many movements find it difficult to define themselves in terms of these criteria.

Touraine (2006) argues that collectives may have difficulty defining their identity, due to the fluidity or coalition of individuals from different social groups, with similar opinions on a particular subject, which often leads to an inability to collectively mobilize. In addition, they may have difficulty defining their opponent, generating only modernizing or backlash SMs. They may still have difficulty defining what is at stake in their struggle with the opponent, that is, the bet of their movement. In these cases, they cannot be said to be SMs in Touraine’s view.

Touraine (2004b) also believes that the TSMs that existed in industrial society were gradually replaced by the cultural NSMs of postindustrial societies from the 1960s onwards. More recently, Touraine (2004b) warns us that it is necessary to differentiate SMs from collective manifestations, because the former have a sense of identity and ideology that the collective of manifestations do not have.

Touraine (1981) considers that more democratic societies allow more the development of NSM; however, due to the reduced need for cohesion and organization in these contexts, they also collapse more easily. Touraine (1992) considers that democracy is a necessary condition for limiting social conflicts. When these boundaries disappear, extremist forms of political countercultures and individual and collective manifestations of violence emerge.

Another claim presented by Touraine (1983) is that SM have as one of their causes the crisis of political representation through elective processes. Touraine (2003) complements this idea by saying that SMs became more prevalent as the Welfare State was abandoned. This abandonment was due to governmental arguments that in times of crisis, the state should relax the rules so that there are less barriers to economic development. This flexibility makes labor relations precarious, while economic crises make social policies unfeasible, making room for SM and Non-profit organizations to demand or replace Social Policies.

Touraine (1965) considered that the idea of Welfare State comes from the SMs. In his opinion, this State model absorbed the demands of the existing SMs at the time, transforming them into Public Policies. In this sense, the increase of the number of SMs in the face of the Minimum State would be a return to its origins, not a Social Innovation.

Touraine (1992) considers that another possible origin of the SMs is the European effort to colonize the world, which has generated a desire to universalize Western values towards the colonized peoples. According to the author, this generated both the European SMs of the 18th and 19th century, which aimed both at the predominance of reason and progress and fought counter-movements in the opposite direction. In this sense, Santos and Meneses (2010) have a decolonizing sense during the contemporary context.

Summarizing his theory, Touraine (1992) believes that each individual constitutes a SM in itself, adding to the collective of SMs his/her life projects and affirmation, as much as the mobilization of their own identity. This subject would be the locus of integration between two centrifugal forces: that of Identity, formed through the processes of Socialization and Cultural Heritage, and that of Rationality, placed by Modernity as a fundamental and exclusionary criterion of all others, which currently governs society. This Rationality, especially the Economic one, would be placed as hegemonic criterion due to the positivist inheritance that governs the current scientism.

According to Touraine (1978), the transition from TSM to the NSM occurred through a slow and gradual process, punctuated by several phases: (1) decline of the TSM; (2) widespread cultural crisis that questions the foundations of society in the past; (3) rejection of the Traditional Economic Model of Development; (4) Liberal and Libertarian criticism of the State; (5) refusal to concentrate power and return to the primary groups of coexistence and the appreciation of lived experience; (6) desire for Identity Affirmation simultaneously with acceptance of the changes proposed by NSMs.

In sum, Alain Touraine argues that NSM are formed by individuals who have their own agenda. His approach defends that NSM are built by conscious and reflecting agents to improve the wellbeing in an individual and collective stance. Touraine, throughout his work, believes that NSM bring Social Change by reconfiguring existing power structures within Historicity.

In a complementary manner, Boaventura de Sousa Santos, throughout his works, highlights the importance of Social Movements in the production of knowledge, by redefining dominant narratives and searching for significant Social Changes. He values the diversity of perspectives and actions that SMs bring to both Public Sphere and Scholarly Studies. Analogously with Touraine, he approaches TSM in a critical way and is committed to improve the NSM by making more prolific the interchanges and merges between: (1) the Lay and Scholarly Spheres and (2) different cultures and places, including across countries. These processes of exchanges and mixing of cultures is called Intercultural Translation (Santos, 2016). They occur between many SMs, such as indigenous, feminist, environmentalist, among others, taking advantage of the intersectionality of these movements and helping each other to achieve common goals.

Santos and Meneses (2010) introduce the concept of Epistemologies of the South, which opposes the prevailing Eurocentric view in academia. They argue that the perspectives and forms of knowledge generated by marginalized or oppressed SMs can be just as valid as those from the global North, both in Lay and Scholarly communities. In addition, he argues that his theory goes further than the anticolonial or decolonial, because it deals with the Sociology of Absences and the Sociology of Emergences (Santos, 2002). In this way, he doesn’t waste his efforts fighting the colonizing forms of knowledge. Instead, he affirms the possibilities of new institutionalities and modes of Social Relationships.

For Santos (2002), many realities of peripheral and developing countries, located predominantly in the global South, are made invisible by the dominant Western paradigm. The Sociology of Absences aims to make present what was said by mainstream society as absent. This process seeks to identify what was made invisible or labeled as outdated by the hegemonic paradigm, in order to reverse processes of disavowal and dehumanization promoted against vulnerable groups and peripheral countries by these same paradigms.

In the Sociology of Emergencies, on the other hand, there is an attempt to value what is being produced outside the globalized culture, whether in terms of practices or knowledge. This knowledge can be in terms of local cuisine, dances, music, worldviews, ways of working, ways of dealing with the environment, among other everyday aspects. These new forms of knowledge, generated in different parts of the globe, in an unconventional way, constitute the so-called Epistemologies of the South (Santos & Meneses, 2010). In this process, new forms of partnership and worldview can be incorporated, coming from the Global South, to hegemonic knowledge, in a process of reversal of the colonial flow of knowledge, worldviews and circulation of goods. In this way, the author proposes to recognize the world’s epistemological diversity and give voice to subaltern knowledge.

Another way of giving voice to subaltern knowledge is Participatory Democracy (Santos, 2009). In the author’s view, it is necessary to exercise democracy more effectively than just voting for elected positions, such as mayor, governor, president, among other elective positions. He argues that democracy actually materializes in assemblies, work groups, joint efforts and other popular forms of articulation and social participation. It analyzes these practices in SM from various parts of the globe, such as those that take place during the World Social Forums (WSF). In this way, the importance of Popular Participation in political decisions is highlighted, proposing Participatory Democracy as a complement or alternative to Representative Democracy.

From an economic-social point of view, Santos (1997) defends the idea of counter-hegemonic globalization. In the hegemonic neoliberal globalization process, world integration is based on market interests. Santos (1997) considers that other practices should be disseminated globally: those based on Human Rights, Social Justice and Cultural Diversity.

Those means of collective subsistence take place in a movement of Democracy Reinvention (Santos, 1998), led by SM, as spaces of innovation, creating counter-hegemonic alternatives. These spaces can be, for example, Unions, which, in the author’s view, need to reinvent themselves to meet current labor demands, instead of worrying about maintaining their own institutionalization.

Another instance in which it is possible to innovate is the State, as an articulator of different SMs, making bridges between different levels of organization and other stakeholders in different sectors of activity. In Santos’s view (1998), the State should promote the discussion of relevant given themes between disparate stakeholders, which makes the State, in this configuration, the “Newest Social Movement” (Santos, 1988, p. 44). In this context, experimentation with NSM can take place. They can, then, benefit from the experience and State apparatus in terms of capillarity and socio-political articulation, in order to promote “Redistributive Democracy” (Santos, 1988, p. 46), in a process of “Meta-Governance” (Santos, 1988, p. 51).

In the author’s view, Redistributive Democracy (Santos, 1988) is present in collective decision-making processes, such as the participatory budget in Porto Alegre or in the Social Control of public resources, via the Third Sector, SM or Civil Society in general. It is also possible to hold referendums for the allocation of public resources inside the various federation entities inside the country.

In this metamorphosis of the State, the author sees it as an “Experimental State” (Santos, 1988, p. 49), in which interactions between the State and stakeholders generate demands, flows and invention or adaptation of legal/institutional devices, so that changes take place in an incremental process of trial and error. In this way, what is in dispute (in light of Touraine’s theory) are alternative institutional designs crossed by the demands of the different actors in the process. These institutional designs must also incorporate demands from different geographic levels, including international cooperation between peripheral and semi-peripheral countries. The author argues that, in this way, it is possible to face old and new forms of economic, social and cultural fascism that are increasingly prevalent and normalized in contemporary society.

The author also warns that it is necessary to have as principles the contradictions between old and new institutionalities, because these contradictions will provide the conditions, so that the solutions to the new social demands will emerge. In addition, it is necessary to provide the different stakeholders with equal possibilities for intervention and monitoring of transparency, in order to democratize institutional experimentation.

Furthermore, Santos believes that SMs play a crucial role in advocating for social improvements and the right to dignified work. He also created the Popular University of Social Movements (UPMS) inside the WSFs (Santos et al., 2019), which aim to promote intercultural and interpolitical education and knowledge exchange among SM and other spheres. Inside the UPMS, there are many Work Groups and Assemblies in which the total time of intervention for each speaker is limited, in order to achieve the maximum collective participation. If this was not done this way, there would be the usual monopoly of speech of the most experienced people inside the SMs, Universities, Public Sector and Private organizations.

In general, according to both theories presented in this section, it is possible to define the SMs according to Touraine’s Theory and distinguish some features that outline emancipatory movements, in light of Santos’ ideas. To apprehend a deeper meaning for the Emancipation concept, the next section presents a brief literature review on Emancipation.

THE EMANCIPATION CONCEPT

Emancipation can not be considered as a static state of human beings, because there is not a clear criterion to distinguish between emancipated and non-emancipated people. As the ideas that gave way to the concept of Emancipation, Susen (2015) attributes the most influential approaches to the following thinkers: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), Georg W. F. Hegel (1770-1831), and Karl Marx (1818-1883).

Rousseau (2011) considers both property and Social Inequality byproducts of the Bourgeois Revolution, not being, therefore, unavoidable and natural facts. Kant (2003), on the other hand, understands the categorical imperative as unconditional moral principles that are justified as ends in themselves. In Kant’s view (1996), humans can liberate themselves from self-interest and villainy following the categorical imperatives. He called this process as Enlightenment, when men leave the condition of immaturity, meaning the lack of ability to use one’s own understanding.

Hegel (1977), complementarily, sees humans not only as cognitive entities, but as entities that establish social relations based on mutual recognition. In the author’s thought, Self-Liberation from historically specific forms of domination can only occur inside these processes of socialization. Marx (2000), likewise, thinks that there are two types of work: alienated and emancipated. In the alienated one, the individual works to satisfy other’s needs. In the emancipated version, he works towards his own needs.

In more detail, Marx (1992) defends that political Emancipation is, at the same time the dissolution of the Old Society, in which the power of the sovereign rested, with the political system estranged from the people. The Old Society, in this context, is the feudal society, where people’s affairs were separated from the sovereign’s affairs.

Another trait of this kind of society, that was more prevalent in the Middle Age, but is becoming the new normal nowadays, is the importance of religion in the state’s affairs, in other terms, a Theocracy. In the text about the Jewish question, Marx (1992) explains that political Emancipation, the macro process, occurs when the State liberates itself from religion, but continues to exploit people. The micro process, Human Emancipation, occurs when man sees himself no longer as separated from society, so that he can be part of society’s forces in order to emancipate people collectively (Marx, 1992). In Human Emancipation, men individually free themselves from religion, becoming able to see their alienation from work and to intervene collectively against their exploitation.

About the French Revolution in 1789, Marx (1992) said that the bourgeois class rose in rebellion because it wanted to participate in the country’s government. In this context, Emancipation meant the removal of the control of public affairs, the high civic, military, and religious functions from the hands of the privileged classes who had a monopoly of these functions.

For Habermas (2005), Emancipation expresses a special type of individual experience in which processes of self-understanding converge in a gain in terms of Autonomy. In another moment, Habermas (1983) sees Autonomy as an effort to define the values and moral principles that have validity and application, independently of the authority of groups or people that support them, not mattering if the individual identifies himself or not with these groups.

This hegemony can be understood as an obstacle to Emancipation (Marx & Engels, 2004). In this sense, it is realistic to think that most of the social behavior is conceived as utilitarian, as the result of an egocentric calculation of possible advantages (Habermas, 2003).

For Marcuse (1979), this translates in the behavior of the One-Dimensional Man, in which a pattern of One-dimensional thinking and behavior emerges. In this pattern, the individual repels ideas, aspirations, and goals that, by their content, transcend his established universe of word and action. A slightly better alternative happens when he reduces these ideas to terms of his universe, losing what can’t fit in his limited mindset (Marcuse, 1979). This process leads the individual to only follow society’s tendencies inside his social group, perceiving all that is outside as strange or despicable.

According to Marcuse (1979), all liberation depends on the self-consciousness of servitude. This awakening of the consciousness is always impaired by the predominance of the most basic needs, such as housing, food, public security, health, formal education and so on.

Another component of this construction is that liberation (from someone’s tutelage) can not occur individually, because social cohesiveness and solidarity are conditions to the Collective Emancipation (Marx & Engels, 2004). In addition, the Individual Emancipation is a precondition to the Collective Emancipation (Marx, 2005). This view that Emancipation is an Internal Control Locus process is akin to Marx (2005) and Marx and Engels (2004). Habermas (2003) argues that Emancipation can be facilitated inside democratic societies, but can not be produced through external interventions.

This awakening to the process of Emancipation only occurs when the concrete man recovers within himself the abstract citizen and becomes whole, in his individual work and in his personal relations, having recognized and organized his own strengths as social forces (Marx, 2005).

In a similar way, Rancière (2010) discusses Emancipation in order to provide a praxis that sees Emancipation both as a means and an end. In the author’s view, one must start from the point of view that all human beings were given equal intelligence. The catalyst of the Emancipation process, can show to the individuals the strength of their own competences, but they have to effectively recognize and operationalize their strengths in order to deal with their lack of privileges.

In addition, Panagia and Rancière (2000) consider that Emancipation takes place in two types of moments: the intervals and the interruptions. In the philosopher’s view, intervals are the times when the individual is not working in favor of the market. In these moments, such as breaks for meals and rest periods at work, the individual can emancipate himself by making contact with emancipatory experiences and contents, which enable him to achieve his personal or professional fulfillment, in a more satisfactory way for himself.

Interruptions, on the other hand, are moments like marches, work-to-rule strikes, complete work stoppages and other similar collective protest movements that drive the market agents to become aware of their dependence on their employees. In Panagia and Rancière’s view (2000), it is only possible for an employer to give an order to a subordinate and be obeyed, because of the commensurability and intelligibility of the language that is used by both of them, provided by their original human equality condition. This original human equality, that is, the memory that all humans are made of flesh and blood, thus vulnerable and fragile, must, in the view of the author, be constantly practiced by all in their process of Emancipation. By practicing this equality, it is possible to effectively achieve the Equality of rights, opportunities and means of livelihood for all.

Based on Rancière (2000), the equality of opportunities between all individuals can only be achieved through Freedom of Action. This leads us to support Rancière’s vision through the ideas on Emancipation of Amartya Sen. Sen (2001) considers that the main drivers of Development are Freedom and Education. Comparing different nations, the author concluded that those with the largest number of highly educated inhabitants, being under democratic regimes are the ones with the greatest Development.

From the standpoint of Sen (2001), democratic regimes provide Freedom of Action, so that the inhabitants can exercise their subsistence skills to counter collectively adverse economic or social situations. As well as Rancière (2001) considers that equality is both a means and an end in itself, Sen (2001) considers that Freedom works in an analogous way. He regards as basic the following Freedoms for Human Agency, that is, the Capabilities to achieve one’s desired Functionings, that can be considered as facilitating conditions for Emancipation:

• Political freedom: it provides citizens with the voice to denounce situations of social vulnerability in a non-authoritarian social environment and assists in the distribution of income through social projects and individual entrepreneurship.

• Transitional and market liberties: freedom to work, to receive from their own work and to exchange intellectual, financial and goods and services exchanges.

• Social opportunities: universal access to basic education.

• Reduction in fertility in a non-coercive way: universal access to basic education provides reduction in fertility without state coercive intervention, which leads to greater female participation in public life and economic activities.

From these different perspectives on Emancipation, one can understand that Emancipation happens when an individual perceives himself as potentially equal to others, with his individual capacities constituent and consonant with the motor of social forces. On the other side, one needs to perceive himself as a political being and free to act in the society in favor of a Common Good.

As a way of illustrating these theories of SMs, the following section exemplifies contemporary SMs around the world. This list does not mean to be exhaustive, but to provide instances to apply the different theories presented in this article.

SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AROUND THE WORLD

This section lists various SMs in approximate chronological order in which they happened. Whenever possible, identity, opponent and bets/projects are identified. Additionally, it is sought to understand whether the SM is emancipatory, by means of the theories of Boaventura Sousa Santos and Social Management.

The Feminist Movement, according to Taylor and Whittier (1995), had actions since the 19^th century, such as: awareness groups; marches with slogans; women’s clubs and lobbying with politicians. The main agenda in this SM is the women’s demands, considering the intersectionality between the different countries, phenotypes, cultures and sexual orientations. They have as adversaries the misogynists, specially the privileged ones.

As the projects and bets of this SM, there are many stances: Reproductive Rights (Touraine, 1992); right of owning land (Doss et al., 2014); Universal Suffrage (Daley & Nolan, 1994); equality in salaries and opportunities of ascension in career (Figart, 1997) and political representation (Lovenduski, 2005). In terms of Emancipation, the results of the feminist SM worldwide are mixed. For example, Duxbury et al. (2018) report the female work overload, because of the lack of a fair Sexual Division of Labor in the domestic environment. In contrast, Blay and Alterman (2020) presents the advances in terms of this SM’s agendas inside Brazil, Argentina, and Chile over the last 50 years.

The Algerian Revolution, according to Fantasia and Hirsch (2013), which occurred throughout the 1950s, took place starting from the 600,000 Algerian migration to France, fighting alongside the French in World War I. The revolution has origins during and after the French colonization of Algeria (1830-1840), in which the French tried to eliminate Islam as a cultural base of Algeria and convert the natives to Christianity. As a form of resistance to colonization, the Algerians used the domestic environment as loci of Islamic resistance. In terms of Touraine’s theory, the identity is related to the Islamic Culture and the bet is the right to live as an Islamic inside their own country. According to the authors, because of this SM, there were some emancipatory achievements: the freedom of women to act as revolutionaries and the Argelian Independence in 1962.

According to Andrews (2002), the US Civil Rights Movement took place between 1955 and 1968. As main demands, people of all races protested for equal education and work opportunities. Its opponents were racist social and political movements. The bet also involved black access to voting, black political participation, equal education, work opportunities and the end of violence against black people. This SM can be seen as mainly emancipatory, ending the official US segregation against black people. On the other hand, it couldn’t reach the end of State violence against black people yet.

Touraine (1998) reported student participation in the May of 1968 Movement in France. In total, the strike involved 11 million people, 22% of the French population at the time. The opponents were the US corporations. The bet was against capitalism, consumerism, and American Imperialism. Because the bets are very abstract and the demands are not easily defined or achievable, the potential for Emancipation was very limited.

Brysk (1993) addressed various Argentine Human Rights Movements, such as Las Madres de la Plaza de Mayo and the Plaza de Mayo’ s Abuelas. They began in 1976, due to the dictatorship, with an estimated disappearance of 22,000 people. As mobilization strategies, there are protests until today from mothers and grandparents in the Plaza de Mayo. As their bet, they support the right of families to bury their missing loved ones and find the grandchildren that were adopted illegally by families loyal to the regime. The identity of these SMs is mainly formed by the mothers, grandmothers, wives and children of missing people during the authoritarian regime. As main results, bringing closure, not exactly Emancipation, they could make these issues visible worldwide and bring to justice the officials that committed those crimes.

The Brazilian Landless Movement (MST in Portuguese), according to Scherer-Warren (2008) was formed inside the country, beginning in 1984. In light of Touraine (1978), the MST has the peasantry as its identity and is opposed to large landowners, being the land property their object of dispute. Seeing the land property as a means of production and income generation, those SMs can be seen as emancipatory in the sense of Sen’s capabilites (2001).

Following this section’s timeline, the Chinese student movement lasted from April to June of 1989 (Yang, 2007). According to the author, the movement was caused by reaction to an authoritarian state and pursuit of freedom of expression in China’s major cities. The identity of this MS coincides with China’s progressive intellectual class. As it is seen today, China is still under an authoritarian regime of government, with no feasible probability of Collective or Individual Emancipation.

Gaiger and Kuyven (2019) consider that the Brazilian Solidarity Economy (SE) movement started in 1990. The bets of the movement are the Self-Sustainability of workers in SEE and the construction of alternatives to the Capitalist Economy. This agenda is currently being led by the Brazilian associations and informal groups such as recovered companies, family farmers and artisans and recycling material collectors. This SM’s emancipatory potential is directly linked to its potential to improve the capabilities of people. Because this SM is constituted by mostly vulnerable people, it is an urgent need to increase the education and professional training of its target audience.

Still in the national context, Scherer-Warren (2014) reflected the importance of the June of 2013 Journeys. They combined the efforts of various social movements such as the Free Pass Movement, homeless movements and housing struggle, student movements and World Cup Popular Committees. The protesters had a very extensive agenda: increasing the passage of public transport; in favor of zero tariff; fighting the corruption in the political class; improvement of the quality of public services and fighting spending on the 2014 World Cup. In terms of Emancipation, Lima and Sawamura (2016) report that this SM brought mixed results to Brazilian Politics, making emerge Extreme-Right parties that didn’t have a voice until then. This group has representatives that recently held many elective positions including the Brazilian Presidency, causing setbacks to the legislation, actions and jurisprudence covering identity agendas and vulnerable groups. According to the authors, those setbacks occur during the times of economic surplus, when the middle and proletary classes lose their perception of precarity at work and start to reproduce the higher classes’ discourses.

On a global scale, Castells (2015) listed various international movements triggered by the 2007-2008 International Crisis and the Arab Spring. He says that the Arab Spring began with the Jasmine Revolution in Tunisia. This revolution took place between December of 2010 and January of 2011, articulated mainly by the Tunisian General Labour Union (UGTT) and Human Rights activists, leading to protests involving hundreds of thousands of participants from diverse backgrounds. The main demands of this SM were freedom of speech, fighting political corruption, unemployment, high inflation, and the marked Social Inequality. They were against the State and led to the escape of the president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali to Saudi Arabia, ending a 23 years mandate of authoritarian regime. In terms of Emancipation, they had ambiguous results, because they managed to hold several parliamentary and presidential elections, but still have to deal with arbitrary arrests, lack of press freedom and military courts judging civilians.

According to Castells (2015), like the second Arab Spring revolution, the Egyptian Revolution took place between January and February of 2011 against fraud in the 2005 and 2010 elections. The main motivators of the protests were the State of Exception, famine, unemployment, social justice, labor rights, corruption, sexism, promotion of female participation in parliament and police violence. Although the intention was progressive, The Mubarak’ resign from the presidency gave sequence to a sequence of coups d’etat, with lack of press freedom and violation of Human Rights.

Making an overview of the Arab Spring in 2011, Castells (2015) lists several other similar movements. As motivators in several countries, women’s rights to vote, education, health, the right to drive, to work, the right to come and go and to property were listed. In the case of the poorest Arab countries, Social Justice, Freedom of Speech, hunger, unemployment and corruption were the main causes. As main advancements, there was also the renouncement of other authoritarian presidents as Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen and the flourishing of other progressive SM around the world.

On the other hand, many of the protests turned into full-scale civil wars, with foreign military interventions and the strengthening of extremist groups, like the Islamic State. In addition, many of the countries, subsequently, experienced a backlash and worsening of authoritarian regimes, with regressive revisions of the law, impoverishment, and mass flight of refugees, due to wars or political issues.

It can be noted from the foregoing that SMs that appear in academic literature and in the mass media do not always have well-defined identity, opponents or goals. What seems to move part of the participants of the movements is a sense of restlessness and desire for change, with no definite direction or bet. This makes the distinction defended by Touraine (2004b), between SMs and collective manifestations an unfeasible task, due to the difficulties listed by him in Touraine (2006).

Along this section, there were mixed results in terms of definition of SMs and their results in terms of individual or collective Emancipation. In the following final remarks, some emerging ideas resulting from this analysis are presented.

FINAL REMARKS

The theoretical choice made here starts from the main Theories on Social Movements, namely from Alain Touraine and Boaventura de Sousa Santos. This returns us to the original question. Is activism able to emancipate? To answer this question, it is necessary to turn to the definitions of SMs and Emancipation.

According to Touraine’s Theory, they are characterized by Identity, Opponent and Bet. To synthesize the review made throughout this paper, Emancipation is understood as the liberation from the guardianship of others and taking possession of one’s own autonomy. At this point, a convergence can be presented. The construction of Identity and Project usually requires people prepared to think for themselves and defend their agenda.

Being part of a larger group, the individuals can be manipulated by agendas that are not his own. At this point, it is important to distinguish collective and effectively participatory construction of agendas from top-down imposed agendas. Here, it is not in question whether the agenda is legitimate or not. Rather, it is questioned whether the construction of the agenda itself is carried out in an emancipatory way.

If the agendas are built collectively, debates are optimized by discussing and proposing ideas, forming a collective that has the potential to propose its own agendas. However, if the agendas are not built collectively, but rather adopted in a top-down manner, as they are prescribed or directed by higher authorities or more experienced SMs, the emancipatory potential is, in practice, diminished.

In the light of Touraine’s Theory, if one social group has a specific opponent and a bet, the functioning of SMs can be hampered for several reasons. Perhaps most relevant is the frequent need to win over the other and not to win with the other, whether this other is from their own SM or belongs to another group or SM.

In these cases, the Identitary Agendas of the NSMs can clash with each other, possibly harming the search for Collective Well-Being sought by both vulnerable groups inside the distinct SMs. This type of conflict benefits the hegemonic forces that wish to make these SMs of conflicting vulnerable groups invisible or unfeasible. In order to prevent this situation, the SMs must recognize their intersectionality and join forces against common threats or to implement positive agendas.

What can be deduced from this discussion is that SMs, if collectively constructed, can be paths to Emancipation. Thus, Boaventura Sousa Santos’ Theory is useful to analyze some emancipatory aspects of SMs, as follows. In light of his Sociologies of Absences and Emergences, emerging SMs can be identified, even if they were silenced by the mainstream culture. With his South’s Epistemologies and the massive incorporation of new technologies by the masses, important questions like the Yanomami Genocide, the State Coups worldwide, the Climatic Poverty of those living in risk areas, the Refugees Issue, as well as many other important life or death questions for the peripheral countries are made known via a short video post on digital platforms. In a positive manner, those same videos and social media posts can show the daily life of those native peoples so that the West World does not see them as the Others or the Exotic Ones.

In terms of Participative and Redistributive Democracy, the SMs can be effective spheres of experimentation and conviviality, presentially or virtually, making possible public consultations and debates about matters of public interest. They can also have a formative role in forging leaders capable of living with others and acting collectively for effective social intervention.

Those bottom-up movements of visibility through digital means, propagation of tutorials through public video platforms, for example, are gradually legitimizing cultures that were previously silenced, as they did not appear on TV, constituting gradually a process of Counter-Hegemonic Globalization. Those digital means also help to make connections between different SMs around the world, making them see the intersectionality and commonality of their agendas. By making several minds from different cultures and different life experiences and backgrounds think together about similar problems, it is possible to achieve the long-awaited Cultural Reinvention proposed by the author.

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• DATA AVAILABILITY

  The extended version of the report that generated this paper is available on http://hdl.handle.net/11612/1934

REVIEWERS

• 4
  Tamara Ilinsky Crantschaninov (Programa de Mestrado Profissional em Gestão Pública da Universidade de Brasília/DF - Brazil). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4841-9452
• 5
  Marco Aurélio Marques Ferreira (Universidade Federal de Viçosa, Viçosa / MG - Brazil). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9538-1699

PEER REVIEW REPORT

• 6
  The peer review report is available at this URL: https://periodicos.fgv.br/cadernosebape/article/view/91019/85518

• 7
  [Original version]

Hélio Arthur Reis Irigaray (Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro / RJ - Brazil). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9580-7859

Fabricio Stocker (Fundação Getulio Vargas, Rio de Janeiro / RJ - Brazil). ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6340-9127

Data availability

The extended version of the report that generated this paper is available on http://hdl.handle.net/11612/1934

Publication Dates

• Publication in this collection
  27 May 2024
• Date of issue
  2024

History

• Received
  14 Apr 2023
• Accepted
  05 Oct 2023