The talk will look at some of the limitations and tensions of trying to do political work on the left from a position within civil society. While we often tend to ascribe inherent value to self-organization and autonomy in circumstances marked by political oppression, social exclusion and chauvinism, and tactical import in circumstances where social institutions and parts of the political system are blocked to change, the capacity of civil society to do political work faces structural constraints on three levels. The first constraint obviously has to do with the systemic division of labour in liberal democracies between the three sectors, where the remit of civil society is dictated from without by the regulation and support of the state and the economic power of business. Whatever civil society can achieve happens with the kind permission of the state and/or capital. Furthermore, it doesnt transform the social dynamic, but rather cushions its contradictions. However, in this talk I dont intend to go deeper into the critique of this tripartite division. It is understood that for many on the left working within civil society remains an objective circumstance under which they can create resources needed to sustain their political work. Instead I want to focus on two other sets of constraints that have to do with the organizational form on the one side and the operative dynamics of civil society organizations on the other. Self-organization allows for a lot of manoeuvring space, as one is responsible primarily to ones comrades and shared purposes. There are few limitations set by the institutional arrangement and few interests to negotiate, joint action can unfold quickly without complicated processes of deliberation and balancing of sides. However, this tactical facility comes at a price. Weak institutional fold and lack of arresting rank and file also means weak leverage and lack of sustained social force to back ones political work. Even in situations of successful mobilization of and alliance with broader social forces, the bonds remain fickle and can be hardly sustained in the long run as the interests between the actors are structurally different. Hence the tensions between trade unions and civil society organizations that were all familiar with. Lastly, the operative constraint to sustain the organization, its resources and livelihood of people can also have limitative effects. Projects with funder-driven activities have to be pursued, organizational bureaucratization threatens, meaningful activities have to be fit into a year-by-year project cycle dictated by funding opportunities, made standardized to requirements of funding bodies and ultimately replaceable with any other similar activity. In the talk these problems and the ways of circumventing them will be discussed drawing from some of the work of MaMa and Right to the City over a period of ten years or so. Tomislav Medak is co-ordinating the theory and publishing program of the Multimedia Institute/MAMA (Zagreb, Croatia). Hes a free software and free culture advocate. Currently his focus is on issues related to crisis capitalism, the commons and social justice. In parallel hes working with his Zagreb-based theatre collective BADco. radnickistudiji.org/?p=207%2F
Posted on: Sat, 26 Oct 2013 15:32:06 +0000