ivan boothe : the.quixotic.life : searching for the windmills

Just what kind of social change are you interested in?

ivan — Wed, 14 May 2008 20:54:43 -0400

This month's "Net2ThinkTank" question: "Is Online Activism Good for Social Change?"

As someone who was quoted in the "Social Citizens" report and has written in the past about technology and social change, my answer to that question would certainly be "yes."

But I think the question is significantly complicated in the question from Allison Fine, author of "Social Citizens":

Is our tendency to connect only with like-minded people using our online and on land social networks a good thing for activism or a critical bottleneck to the effective scaling for causes?

Put another way I think it could be asked: Online activism is good for social change — but what kind of social change?

Many nonprofits use social networks and online activism as a way to boost their membership rolls and donation levels. As I've written before, that seems less useful to me than focusing on empowering an effective movement — whether or not people donate to your organization or sign up for your newsletter. This isn't to minimize the challenges everyone faces on how to support working for social change, both financially and emotionally. But it is to say that movements are bigger than any one nonprofit. Certainly, organizations can ignore that and focus on using MySpace to get new email addresses and Facebook to drum up donations — but frankly, I don't think that has a lot to do with social change.

Only when the operational concerns are placed secondary to social change concerns do I see social change really being possible. It's not a secondary outcome; it has to be the primary concern. And that's true, in my opinion, whether you're talking about online or offline social change.

More than thirty years ago, sociologists Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward wrote in the introduction to Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (1977):

[D]uring those brief moments when lower-class groups exert some force against the state, those who call themselves leaders do not usually escalate the momentum of the people's protests. They do not because they are preoccupied with trying to build and sustain embryonic formal organizations in the sure conviction that these organizations will enlarge and become powerful.

More recently, members of the collective INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence published the scathing The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex, which excoriated the nonprofit system — primarily foundations, but also the kind of institutionalized dissent Piven and Cloward explored above — for perpetuating the social inequity they say they want to end.

In the 1970s and '80s, rising social inequality helped hasten a breakdown of both communities and community struggles. (We "Millennials" of which Fine writes were, of course, originally termed "Reagan Babies.") Poor people's movements Piven and Cloward explore were co-opted and defused by top-down organizers from large nonprofits. And family foundations, rooted back in the (first) Gilded Age and gaining power in the tech booms of the 1990s, helped professionalize the practice of dissent. Or as Patrick Reinsborough writes in an oft-quoted essay, "De-Colonizing the Revolutionary Imagination":

Just as service oriented NGO's have been tapped to fill the voids left by the state or the market, so have social change NGO's arisen to streamline the chaotic business of dissent. Let's call this trend NGOism, that terrifyingly widespread conceit among professional "campaigners" that social change is a highly specialized profession best left to experienced strategists, negotiators and policy wonks. NGOism is the conceit that paid staff will be enough to save the world.

Some nonprofits, older and more institutionalized, are wary of giving their members "control" of their "message" in the realm of social networks and social media. Mostly, I think that's nothing more than a fear of losing power. When you think you know how to change the world, it can be hard for some people to want to involve others — or give anyone else the credit.

What's interesting is that this time around, there's a significantly higher ability for activists to self-organize. The message to nonprofits from the past few years seems pretty clear: Stand in our way, and we'll just go around you. The 2006 student walkouts for immigrant rights spread through MySpace without any "sponsoring" organization. As I explained in a presentation on Facebook, when the Genocide Intervention Network first arrived on the scene, we found dozens of existing groups and networks already active — our objective was simply to connect them and provide them with effective tools for action. A participant in the protests over the Jena Six said, "I am so disappointed with the media right now. I live in Connecticut and I never even heard of this. Honestly if it wasn't for Facebook, I still wouldn't know."

So the question really goes to the nonprofits and other groups using social networks and social media: What kind of social change do you want? And are you willing to help facilitate even if you don't get credit/coverage/donations?

That doesn't mean that "big" nonprofits can't work for social change through technology, or that only unsupported volunteers can really make things better — as Reinsborough puts it in the corollary to the comment above:

This is not to say that corporate campaigns and winning concessions is merely “reformist” and therefore not important. The simplistic dichotomy of reform versus revolution often hides the privilege of “radicals” who have the luxury of refusing concessions when it’s not their community or ecosystem that is on the chopping block.

A more important distinction is which direction is the concession moving towards? Is it a concession that releases pressure on the system and thereby legitimizes illegitimate authority? Or is it a concession that teaches people a lesson about grassroots power building and therefore brings us closer to systemic social change?

I'm not as worried about whether, as Fine asks, the "tendency to connect only with like-minded people" puts limitations on what can be achieved. Most social change movements, including the US civil rights movement, are grounded in those sorts of communities, what's referred to as "affective ties."

But there is a larger question of the technology gap — social movements in general might not be as confined by co-optation like Piven and Cloward describe, but poor people's movements without access or usable knowledge of such technology are still vulnerable to having their goals and struggles appropriated by the more powerful.

Moreover, as danah boyd explores in her fascinating research, these issues are played out in social networks themselves. "The division around MySpace and Facebook is just another way in which technology is mirroring societal values," she writes in "Viewing American class divisions through Facebook and MySpace."

So I think there are gaps in access, in knowledge, and in audience — many nonprofits I've talked to seem to be more excited about organizing on Facebook for instance, because it seems more "natural" or "easy." But it may seem that way simply because it aligns with the class and social habits of people who staff nonprofits — and as boyd documents, many subaltern communities of people (for whom nonprofits are often trying to speak) tend to use MySpace to a greater extent.

Tomorrow is Bloggers Unite for Human Rights (Day). The organizers assert that bloggers can "use their space to make the world a better place." And clearly, given what I do, I think there is a potential for social networks and social media to highlight and organize and empower. But I don't think we can get too far ahead of ourselves, and I think we need to be clear about just what it is we're reaching for. Working for social change means being committed to examining inequality and injustice in our world, and it's simply naïve to think that those dynamics don't affect the very way our organizations — and our notions of social change — are structured.

May Day with Mushrooms

ivan — Thu, 01 May 2008 22:55:54 -0400

I went to a demonstration this afternoon in Kennett Square, Pennsylvania, sponsored by the Farmworkers Support Committee (CATA) based in South Jersey and the Kaolin Workers Union in Kennett Square. This part of rural (but increasingly exurban) southeast PA is a mushroom-growing area; it supplies 40 percent (!) of the United States' mushrooms. CATA and the Kaolin union are both fantastic worker- and immigrant-led organizations that, beginning with the Kaolin Strike in 1993 and culminating in successful unionization in 2002, have kept up the pressure both for workers' rights and migrant laborer and immigrant rights.

I forgot to bring my camera this year, but here are some photos from last year's demonstration:

The crowd was decidedly smaller this year; it had been threatening to rain all day (and did, a little bit). There also seemed to be much less turnout from organizations — last year there were visible representatives from SEIU, IWW and faith communities as well as a few different folks running for local office (on a platform of workers' rights, yay!); this year it seemed somewhat more subdued.

I was actually interviewed for some of the press coverage last year; though there were TV crews and some print reporters at the demonstration none of them apparently spoke Spanish, as they only seemed interested in interviewing English speakers. Some students from Swarthmore had the fantastic idea this year to go along as translators, and it was announced at the beginning that any of them were available to translate for media interviews of the workers.

I'll end with some photos from La Primera Marcha back in April of 2006 in DC. Though it seems in some ways there is less pressure and organizing going on along these issues today — partly as a result of the splintering of groups with the "compromise" immigration bill last year — I think if successful organizing can continue to happen in places like Kennett Square then there's still a lot of potential.

Genocide Intervention Network nominated for NetSquared mashup award

ivan — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 16:34:18 -0400

This week, the Genocide Intervention Network was honored to be nominated by the NetSquared community as a 2008 Featured Project for our proposal to upgrade and extend the DarfurScores.org website:

The Genocide Intervention Network seeks to create a new website, modeled on our successful Darfur congressional scorecard, DarfurScores.org, tentatively named GenocideScores.org.

Our current plan for the site — which could change as we explore different options and hear feedback from our members — has four main components:

Collecting together anti-genocide data, not only on Darfur but on each of our areas of concern. Instead of being limited to only legislative records, each state would list its status on other anti-genocide initiatives like Sudan divestment and genocide education.
Provide clear illustrations of legislative status. Instead of just hearing about a bill when a member of Congress does (or doesn't) vote for it, we'll be tracking bills as they move through each chamber.
Cross-index a bill's status with a member's location. When the latest bill on genocide prevention is up for a vote, anti-genocide activists whose members of Congress represent key votes on the legislation will be able to receive automatic alerts.
Provide embeddable badges or widgets for activists to place on their profiles, blogs or websites. At a glance, both you and visitors to your website, blog or social networking profile will be able to see how your state and legislators are doing on the question of genocide. And when urgent action is needed, these badges will be automatically updated with a special link to take action.

Now, we want your feedback. If you have a chance, read through our proposal for DarfurScores.org and leave a comment — tell us what you like, what you think could be changed, what we're overlooking. Remember that this is all about our core mission: empowering individuals and communities with the tools to prevent and stop genocide. We hope this project will result in a valuable new tool, and we'd love to have your input!

Today, by Frank O'Hara

ivan — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:52:12 -0400

Day 14 of the 2007 Fun-a-Day project with the Artclash Collective.

Today
By Frank O’Hara

Oh! kangaroos, sequins, chocolate sodas!
You really are beautiful! Pearls,
harmonicas, jujubes, aspirins! all
the stuff they’ve always talked about

still makes a poem a surprise!
These things are with us every day
even on beachheads and biers. They
do have meaning. They’re strong as rocks.

F is for foetus, by E.E. Cummings

ivan — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:48:43 -0400

Day 13 of the 2007 Fun-a-Day project with the Artclash Collective.

F is for foetus
By E.E. Cummings

F is for foetus(a

punkslapping
mobsucking
gravypissing poppa but
who just couldn't help it no

matter how hard he never tried)the

great pink
superme
diocri
ty of

a hyperhypocritical D

mocra
c(sing
down with the fascist beast
boom

boom)two eyes

for an eye four
teeth for a tooth
(and the wholly babble open at
blessed are the peacemuckers)

$ $ $ etc(as

the boodle's bent is the
crowd inclined it's
freedom from freedom
the common man wants)

honey swoRkey mollypants

After the Convention, by Robert Lowell

ivan — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 02:34:43 -0400

Day 9 of the 2007 Fun-a-Day project with the Artclash Collective.

After the Convention
By Robert Lowell

Life, hope, they conquer death, generally, always;
and if the steamroller goes over the flower, the flower dies.
Some are more solid earth; they stood in lines,
blouse and helmet, a creamy de luxe sky-blue—
their music, savage and ephemeral. ...
After five nights of Chicago: police and mob,
I am so tired and had, clichés are wisdom,
the clichés of paranoia. On this shore,
the fall of the high tide waves is a straggling, joshing
march of soldiers ... on the march for me. ...
How slender and graceful, the double line of trees,
how slender, graceful, irregular and underweight,
the young in black folk-fire circles below the trees—
under their bodies, the green grass turns to hay.

Now Love (fragment), by Sappho

ivan — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:26:31 -0400

Day 5 of the 2007 Fun-a-Day project with the Artclash Collective.

(poem fragment)
By Sappho, trans. H.T. Wharton

Now Love masters my limbs and shakes me, fatal creature, bitter-sweet.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII), by Edna St. Vincent Millay

ivan — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:23:06 -0400

Day 4 of the 2007 Fun-a-Day project with the Artclash Collective.

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why (Sonnet XLIII)
By Edna St. Vincent Millay

What lips my lips have kissed, and where, and why,
I have forgotten, and what arms have lain
Under my head till morning; but the rain
Is full of ghosts tonight, that tap and sigh
Upon the glass and listen for reply,
And in my heart there stirs a quiet pain
For unremembered lads that not again
Will turn to me at midnight with a cry.
Thus in winter stands the lonely tree,
Nor knows what birds have vanished one by one,
Yet knows its boughs more silent than before:
I cannot say what loves have come and gone,
I only know that summer sang in me
A little while, that in me sings no more.

Walkers with the Dawn, by Langston Hughes

ivan — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 06:04:19 -0400

Day 1 of the 2007 Fun-a-Day project with the Artclash Collective.

Walkers with the Dawn
By Langston Hughes

Being walkers with the dawn and morning,
Walkers with the sun and morning,
We are not afraid of night,
Nor days of gloom,
Nor darkness...
Being walkers with the sun and morning.

The Golden Arches

ivan — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 04:35:03 -0400

This was done with a gentle, watercolor-like application of acrylic paints on canvas board.

The painting was loosely inspired by an oil painting depicting the burning of a classical city (it may have been Rome; I can't recall the name of the work).