Manuel Castells "The Space of Autonomy: Cyberspace and Urban Space in Networked Social Movements"

good evening I think we'll try to get started um hopefully there so there's some more space up here there are few more chairs here apparently there's an overflow room in room 109 if you know for those of you are standing over there if you get sick of standing up or want to go someplace to sit down I just wanted to make that announcement um I don't want to I know the weather has probably slowed some people down but I'm really pleased to see so many people here I'm Diane Davis I'm a professor of urbanism and development in the department of urban planning and design here at the GSD this talk is partially sponsored by an interdisciplinary urbanism seminar that we are developing and building here at the GSD to kind of bring a variety of social science perspectives into urban planning and design and vice-versa um I have the enviable task tonight of introducing a man who probably actually needs no introduction because just looking at the size of the audience on a miserably snowy day in February tells me that or demonstrates what's already known which is that Manuel Castells reputation as a scholar and a leading theorist of cities social movements and technology has traveled far and wide we at the Graduate School of Design err honored to host him here for a lecture tonight it is particularly fitting that Professor Castells is here with us to speak about his most recent book titled networks of outrage and hope which focuses on social movements in the Internet age it was almost 30 years ago that another of his books appeared also focused on social movements called the city and the grassroots a cross-cultural theory of urban social movements Purdue published I think his first book originally published here in the United States not a translation from other books he wrote um I was a student of mine wills when that book came out and we were just reminiscing yesterday about meeting you in a bar in San Francisco when you're doing the field work for that book I can't believe that was 30 years ago don't start adding things that book 1 the sea right Mills award from the American Sociological Association for the best book of the year the year was published and it brought to an American audience a relatively new analytical focus around which Mun well castells had already forged an enviable reputation the phenomena of citizen mobile mobilization and activism at the level of the city and the role that that activism plays comparatively and historically that book focused on 16th century Spain 19th century Paris in a rage of 20th century mobilizations in cities of Latin America Europe and the US after completion of that seminal work which built on but took in new directions the themes that he had already originally explored to great renown in the urban question and city class and power which was I really like that book a is that book a lot well while he was still in Europe when he got to the United States Manuel turned to a direct interest not only in social movements in the city but then later in technology in the city maybe that was being in Northern California near Silicon Valley I don't know maybe he'll tell us more about them right predetermined focusing on information technology in the city uh and then he wrote a paradigm shifting trilogy of books on cities identity and culture and power in the information age and after that moved to other forms of communication but now he's returned to social movements in a big way and again in a kind of virtual space and not just compared him in historical space and his lecture tonight will allow us to see how he's revisiting the larger body of work on technology power and mobilization in the city he's going to be framing that analysis through a focus on of the most significant social movements that we've seen unfold in the last couple years and the role that technology played in our plays in their emergence and fate and so I'm really interested in hearing more about the arc of unwell thinking about social movements it goes without saying that we're thrilled to have such an eminent scholar with us tonight Manuel is author of 26 academic books an editor or co-editor of 22 additional books as well as over a hundred articles and academic journals in addition to his scholarship man well Castells has hold the distinguished has held distinguished appointments at MIT in Oxford and is currently director of research at the Department of Sociology at Cambridge University and fellow of st. John's College at Cambridge he's advised governments and commissions around the world including the European Union and many many commissions in the UN and oh did I mention that he's been knighted for a cause of scientific merit by the governments of France Finland and Portugal uh and in Catalan I wonder I thought we're gonna e2 nationalism you know and yes Brussels oh no one today in the game yeah right Martin was very happy about that um but I think most notably that Manuel is the recipient of the Holberg Prize in 2012 widely considered the noble of the social sciences given by the Parliament of Norway and the balls on prize a year later in 2013 considered the most important general science prize not just social science manuel is the only social scientist to have received both these prizes he's a native catalan he studied law and economics at the University of Barcelona in Paris he received a doctorate in sociology and a doctorate in human sciences from the University of Paris and Sorbonne and presently he's a university professor in Wallis Annenberg chair in communication technology and society at USC as well as professor emeritus at the University of California Berkeley or whose professor of city and regional planning and professor of sociology from 79 to 2003 so quite a impressive resume but it's just great to have you here in person Mun well and so without further ado I give you mine well Castillo's good evening I'm glad that you were trapped by the snow and you could not escape but I do thank you for your interest and your presence here I want to say that how grateful I am and how honored I am by this invitation from the department of urban planning and design and the GSD to give to the lecture tomorrow seminar and I will do my best I am particularly happy to have responded to the generous invitation of my dear friend and colleague for many years Diane Davis who perm is one of the very best urban sociologist around in the world and I hope that you will benefit from her input in this connection between spatially oriented planning and design and social sciences who understand the space and who understand that the space and society are intimately linked intimately connected we have been discussing with Diane for many many years when she was a student and we have continued over time and we share one particular interest in in terms of fieldwork in Mexico which is actually a very fundamental country in many many ways and very moving country and which is currently in terrible situation both urban and political and it's exactly a moment when they scholars who were working on Mexico we should strengthen our connection and keep working more with our Mexican colleagues were in quite quite dramatic situation and then I will lecture tonight about my recent work which is SunRun social movement however with a twist which I am presenting to you not written not not has been not been presented or discussed on the implications of this kind of social movements for space and for the theory and practice of a spatial forms and processes so let me first start with a quick overview of the issues that I will be discussing meaning social movements we know that throughout history social movements had been levers of social change regardless of the outcome on of the content and not normative in this their good social movement battles or movements in normative terms but their major agents of social change I would say they major agents of social change they are trigger by always historical and now by emotions emotions social moons are emotional movements that are share collectively and become from individuals become a process of collective action through a process of communication between the different subjects and so their forms of communication organization and action depend on the culture technology and institutional environment of each particular society and its particular spatial context in the social change is an inseparable from spatial change they go together they interact they are specific but their goal they go together in fact the urban form all her infante result from the relentless interaction between the reproduction of this spatial urban form by the institutionalize of interest and by the resistance and alternative project an encounter action by people citizens who don't feel represented who do not feel included in this automatic reproduction of the urban structure so the river form is urban structure underwent social movements interacting with each other this has been my research agenda for all my life so in this particular lecture we will present and analyze the characteristics of the recent social movements that I call Network social movements and I contend that they represent the shape of social movements in the networked society our kind of society and then after that I will examine where this provides some hypotheses and ideas on the interaction between these network social movements and spatial processes let me first starting very empirically with recalling some of the quickly some of what has happened in in the last five years I would say starting in 2009 in Iran first July 2009 in Iran and then Iceland and Tunisia in 2010 a wave of social movements has taken place around the world not expected by anyone not led by anyone largely spontaneous affecting literally thousands and thousands of cities over over 100 countries although most of them were small in size and escaped to the attention of the media but still they have mobilized thousands and hundreds of thousand and received in many countries in many a widespread social support in spite of the lack of attention of the media and politicians the interesting thing for me is that many of them display very similar characteristics in spite of the huge diversity of contexts where they take place and therefore methodologically speaking I think that if they're in completely different context and related among themselves they are many similar practices of these movements we are witnessing the birth of a new form of social movements which is characteristic of our type of society this is what I can say on the basis of observation observation some buy myself some by my collaborators some by network of colleagues activists friends who around the world who have been interacting and sharing information let me just quickly mention some of the most important of these social movements they ran to light 2009 mm it's my revolution in Iceland was revolution peaceful food was then the Arab revolts that they start in Tunisia in December 2010 and spread to Egypt and to many other server so Arab countries in the spring of 2011 and they're still going on in many places Greece in 2010 still going on they ended us movement in Spain I say in feminine because that's how the movement calls itself which still with recently continues to to have all kind of initiatives and actions in Spain also started in May 2011 Occupy Wall Street lunch in New York in September 2017 2011 and that expanded in the following months with various intensity to over 1000 American cities I have the map in my book with the data of the occupations Israel in 2011 2012 the largest mobilization of Israeli history half a million people mobilizing the streets setting up camps etc Moscow four places massive demonstration 2012 against with always a model against the authoritarian regime of Putin Portugal starting 2011 still going on against economic crisis and the management of the crisis by corrupt political elite the socio-political movement of cinque Stella in Italy in 2012-2013 which has completely changed the landscape of Italian politics regardless of who we can think of a big green love of the manipulation that's it I'm not saying great no I'm saying look a movement that did not exist that is over the Internet and entirely changed the landscape of the corrupt Italian politics um Chile since 2011 a student movement had been in the street with constant demands and they had changed also this style of Chilean politics and the type of demands with the new president Michelle Bachelet who came to office in December saying I will fulfill all the demands of the student movement that were there for two years the US oil ciento the entire loss in Mexico during the presidential campaign in 2012 according to many Mexican we're dead oh not really I was in Guadalajara a month ago I was talking to them they're extremely active in many different forms then the Turkish protest of of last July that started for the defense of GC gassy Park in Istanbul and Taksim Square and is still very active and they provoked again a political crisis in in some way and by the way they want Casey Park is not going to do that rather a lot they actually won already the massive youth demonstrations in Brazil in June and in September I was there I could go to add my movement but I was there and talking to them against transportation fears for Burton urban services and against political corruption including the corruption of the FIFA can you imagine Brazilians protesting at the world cup of soccer that is a true cultural revolution with this Logan we change one hospital for ten stadiums you see that's what I'm trying to do to underline how how truly truly different this has been and even more recently you came of all places the popular uprising against the Kuna which they're people from the right from the left over but in the streets with comes with demonstrations with no connection to the political system they are completely redefining the relationship between Eastern Europe and European Union and is still going on in all these movements there have been many different demands and I will come into this later extremely different and coming from different countries crisis not crisis for instance Brazil and Turkey have no economic crisis now it's a little bit slow than the day at the moment they've got the movement there were the economy was doing very well there were and in Brazil particularly strong programs of alleviation of poverty a leveling president let it pull it the left-wing political party more or less in power in and not Rama crisis the same thing in Turkey turkey is doing very well economically very different from the United States and and they and the European Union even if there is a decline also the economy in Turkey lately that is not Spain with thirty five percent unemployment or Portugal or Greece with the totals in division from my point is that the extremely different context very different motivation a whole array of demands similar forms and similar features one common not demand I would say by theme theme and those of you who believe in the power of words I think could pay attention to this empirical observation they are in all cases there is one word that is repeated in Arabic in Spanish in Turkey's in Ukranian in Brazilian the same word literal translation dignity they are movements for dignity when they are asked what you do not when I ask myself when the government when the media asked dignity in Turkey to write so it's something else going on because many different demands but the key thing is the uprising against the social injustice perceive as a humiliation a daily humiliation by the political establish an paolo protested started with a rise of transportation and they were told well with the secondary few cents a few cents they fall further they're not so few cents you have to move all the time but second is not about the cent they say exploited is for our right is for our dignity keep this in the background look I must say that this the book that they are mentioned and the lecture are very empirical but they are not of course nothing is deprived from theory the theoretical background of all this is the theory of power and counter power I propose in my book communication power 2009 so someone wants to do the exercise of related theory and observation is there so let me first try to identify which are these common-sense the common trends that repeat themselves in all the movements which form therefore a pattern a pattern of a new type of social movement first they are networked they are networked in multiple forms they start in the internet and in social communication networks and around the the mobile communication here on cell phones and smartphones which to some extent is linked to the new technological environment for society just for you to remember one little figure in 1991 the first the first survey of cell phones of moral tone in the world in terms of subscribers not devices subscribers were 16 million people now is 7 billion people in a planet of 7.4 we are connected we are entirely connected of which the more recent projection for three years from now is five billion smartphones that is a smartphone link to the Internet and so the number of Internet users now which is at about two and a half billion people will skyrocket through the wireless connections and through the smartphones therefore providing the technological and social platform for this kind of networking and this is not an accident communication has always been central to social movement throughout history where pamphlets where were speeches at the churches or at the mosque where radio television now pamphlet that all the revolutions started with pamphlets and with written material and with rumours as a matter of fact as well so communication is absolutely Center without communication there are no social movements and the forms of communication that there are communication depend on what exists in every society and therefore these movements are networked in a different way which creates incredibly powerful effects of rapid diffusion of the movement and also debates interactivity and most importantly communicative autonomy because most of these forms of networking electronic communication even if they are owned by corporations that etcetera increases toll entirely the degree of autonomy visibly all the media institutions government corporate power etc however I immediately say that networking is multimodal and it's not just net was in the internet they start in internet because it were autonomy it can be more directly stated but there are social networks online and offline there are pre-existing social networks for instance in in the Arab revolutions and particularly in Egypt the networks of the offline networks of soccer fans had soccer fans were absolutely decisive in starting the revolution the social networks of civil society the personal and family social networks were extremely important their religious networks of people form spontaneously every Friday outside the mosque by the interesting things is all these different networks were connected in the networks in the internet and in mobile communication is these networks of networks of members that creates a meta network which is the form of the movement now this networking capacity has to immediate decisive features first they'd have not identifiable center and yet they ensured the coordination because they can constantly connect and reconnect and reconfigure themselves without the center and therefore they can relatively easily escape repression no one to be arrested they round up the usual suspects doesn't work here because actually even when they do it the usual suspects are not nervous are people so the network themselves they reconfigure themselves with and they coordinate they execute they proposed a debate without necessarily having any formal leadership so it reduces the runer they'll put the ability of the movement to the threat of repression but something else it protects the movement against itself against the risk of bureaucratization manipulation but its own leadership destruction by endless debates on the essence of the movement that never lead nowhere and paralyzes the movement so if anyone really becomes very very heavy or with the same ideology they it's just disconnected and then the movement continues I we could have done this in the Sorbonne in 68 however to this first characteristic a second and extremely important feature has to be added although they usually start in the internet social networks they become a movement they really become a movement by occupying urban space it is the critical moment in which movements go from what I call outrage to hope because by occupying the urban space they become visible they become related to society at large they can start deliberating and debating in this public space and also they they start studying symbolically they claim they have over the city and the city to society symbolic occupied buildings symbolic squares symbolic avenues which at the same time are functionally critical if they block the traffic in the vanilla power list and San Paulo the whole megalopolis collapses so the effects are immediately felt but in addition is also the notion this is our city the buildings the squares the transportation systems this is our city you have taken away from us and in that sense they are urban movements there are urban social movements or the type corresponding to our kind of society but they never leave the internet they always live in the Internet at the same time because that were they can survive when their pressure becomes harsh and so this connection between the cyberspace and the urban space which is the connection of the and the form of the current urban social movement is what I call the space of autonomy it's a hybrid hybrid of internet and urban space and therefore I would not even go into the silly discussion but the internet create the revolution not with the rebels still that's silly no technology creates anything but the issue is how these revolts social movements positions alternative projects exists materially and these materiality is defined by the interaction constant interaction between the space of autonomy and the Internet the space of autonomy occupy the space and their constant hive alleviation of realization this space of autonomy is the new special form of network social movement and it's a high space not beer o'clock no disco is both beautiful and physical and in interaction these movements are also at the same time global and local they are local they are always local they always start locally but they immediately relate both in past and the future - what's going on somewhere else and they connect with other movements immediately over the internet that has to be over the internet but also they send people to do revolutionary tourists which is one of the nicest players I know so and people say hello calm or sure everybody becomes together well some of them are policemen okay but anyway in general the movement immediately connect globally and also they mark symbolically with words with names this globality locality for instance in barcelona the the main plaza catalunya the main square barcelona was immediately named Tahrir Square in New York Liberty Park was immediately renamed Porta del Sol in one part of it portal sold in Madrid and another Tahrir Square and so they recognize each other they connect symbolically we are part of the same thing but remember completely different context cultures motives everything but they feel that they are connected through this affirmation of dignity this fight against the unjust oppressive institution that they do not recognize as their institutions they are spontaneous largely in their origin largely not all but most of them are spontaneous and they are spark with they're motivated originally they come from a spark of indignation that shows an image usually an image that becomes unbearable image of violence or at one point an information that comes about and not yet another corruption in Brazilian in September 2013 what happened was that a-after the moment he already started in June but in September was reignited by the news that one member of parliament of the same Parliament who had been sentenced for embezzlement of public funds and was in prison actually serving Sanders he claimed the right to still be parliamentarian and receive his sorry and the and the Brazilian Congress vote for it so you see some time that image is something that facts that cannot be tolerated anymore fed up fed up basta you see so that that is exactly this is part of indignation is what pushes a call to action from the space of flows in the internet mobile communication that aims at creating an instant community of practice of revolt in the space of places and the power of images is fundamental YouTube people talk about Twitter yes for organizing for mobilizing immediately but YouTube has been decisive because the images of brutality of assassinations of disregard for human life in YouTube had been decisive in many societies including in our democratic California UC Davis police using gas on the front of peaceful people sitting sitting in the campus so it's not just the the machines they've limited the machine guns of Assad is also the police in New York or in California who feel the right to do whatever they want these movements also have another key characteristic their viral viral this is fundamental one of the most important characteristic of the Internet has shown by Professor Kerin dehorning her very recent book going viral is vitality vitality means on the one hand that every message in the internet every image everything immediately expands immediately and therefore is a constant platform of relentless communication of everything we're in the world but in addition the movement themselves are vital you start in one place any possibility of a start in doing the same thing in other place emerges emerges the first demonstration in Egypt in January 2002 the sister of channel 2011 the slogan was Tunisia is the solution the sentence again is meaningful because used to be demonstrations where Islam is the solution that was the typical thing the same it doesn't mean Islam is not they were multi-confessional and at the same time secular and religious but the main thing was we do like Tunisia and another place in Syria we do like in Egypt and and in in the Arab Emirates when they start the particular in Bahrain they started the same way always replicating always relating always we are not alone in the world is the whole world here we are that extremely important this vitality not organized by anyone so therefore you don't need a call instruction messengers isn't needed that a bad guy goes into the internet and before being caught by the NSA senses a mysterious message that ignites everything no the normal internet virality through the connection of the minds the one common characteristic of the movement also in in general is its leaderless in general not always in the case of Chile they have leaders the actual community students but their leaders who accept the principle that the movement and the Assemblies of the movement will decide not not their party and they accept because otherwise they would stop in leaders in 10 minutes now the deep reason why they don't have leaders there are many people who try to believe this of course in any human organization people say I am the leader but the movement systematically rejected because in their DNA is the rejection of the principle of democracy that is based on delegation of power to some persons they don't reject democracy and they don't even reject representative democracy but they simply say well as soon as we delegate who we are to someone this someone will do whatever see your heat whatever with what we want to do and so no we don't delegate to anyone we control primitive Anarchy maybe but for the moment I'm not trying to propose a new way to the rules and trying to serve with the design and the fundamental reason they don't trust delegation of power because they have too many instances and therefore in their collective imaginary delegation is the road to betrayal important in the occupation of urban space is that it creates together nests not community because the community selling some bugs and in most cases their ad hoc community so they're together knees together Nessus one Dementor why this is even we know from neuroscience because the most potent emotion in human life is fear societies are based on fear civilization is based on repression may be good but this isn't in any case the mechanism and fear is only overwhelmed by togetherness by sharing the fear if if you know that they are going to club you and you are alone you panic if you know that you are going to be clubbed with all your friends and people around holding hand well you panic too but you don't run you don't done because you are together so they are also highly self-reflective movements they internet' themselves of the time they debate energy who we are what we want why is that kind to restart the world the whole world they start the whole world and therefore they they go sideways in incredible elevation I have been witnessing in in some of the Spanish assemblies heated debate about Heidegger hmmm well true most of the movements are in fact semi employees are employed college educated people but but that's about you know at this point in Europe is 30 percent of the of each cohort so and college educated but that what I mean is that they don't start with the slogans with looking for a particular revolution they try to think and understand and according to what they have been told for by some of my collaborators in the United States is very similar now a fundamental thing in their origin their nonviolent they are nonviolent and they engage in peaceful demonstration but systematically they are confronted by the pressure and repression is work can be machine guns can be tanks or can be police buttons rubber bullets etc but repression comes that's for sure and the life and death of movements depends on how they handle the issue of violence because their only hope to transform anything is the support to the 99% is calling to the population at large and in fact they receive in general the support of the population or large but if they respond with violence is a different thing most of the movements in the so-called democratic context don't respond with violence there are some violent groups particularly something called the black bloc that is in every country the bloc Bach is a black box it is made of young violent anarchist kids from from the from the deprived neighborhoods provocateurs thugs infiltrated police agents is all at the same time the moment the flare of violence takes over in the media because it's nice footing you know the median going to report immediately fire blood vial runs in the street that moment the movement is corner of course in the Arab revolutions is even worse because at one point they respond in Syria started very peacefully and for six months against bullets they did not respond with violence for six months ten thousand people were killed before that the moment they responded with guns nicely provided by Qatar and the United States and Saudi Arabia then at that point it changed civil war like in Libya the first victim of the Civil War is a social movement there is no social movements in the civil war this notion that revolutionary bother maybe maybe but these notices are moving anymore is not a movement a matter formation society becomes a revolution aim at the transformation or a decision of power of the state and to use the same the same violence in the other way around so movements may start as movements as social movements transformative movement and end up in civil war and that point is a completely different logic logic of the apparatus sees logic of the geopolitical interests and that kills the social movement in principle they are not programmatic they have all the demands and no one is specific and they're not channel toward political formal policies and political institutions but they are very political in a fundamental sense they actually propose and practice it direct deliberative democracy based on network democracy this project in fact is a new utopia of networked democracy based on local communities and builder communities in interaction it so is peace and utopia as you know what utopia are not fantasies utopia are material forces in our minds all the major political transformations political ideologies political project in the world are utopias have been born as utopian liberal it was a utopian social was a utopia coming was a utopia the deform from the soldiers but was an arc it was a utopia grassroot cooperative it was a utopia all these great ideas that people imagined to organize new forms of governance are utopias so utopias definitely cannot be directly translated into the Constitution and made an operational but are the materials on which we work to construct institutions and ultimately to live together and then so what did we have this movement we have described this they are similar everywhere this what I said is common to removal but the media politicians that are always react the same way so what what they have actually achieved now look at them and they're just playing and and there's no serious thing how they can have a budget how can run the country etcetera that well here is the debate so debate in the movement and debate intellectual debate going on from the point of view the movement often this debate about so what what have you accomplished is rejected as a productivist is short term vision of social change say well we're not here to produce something to the terminal uncle we are here because we cannot tolerate it anymore and we are looking and searching for something else and give us the time the Spanish mover has an interesting that slogan we are slow because we go far so so the whole team the whole thing is about the timeframe the horizon which horizon you are productive istic in the same are you going to be effective in one month three months the year five years ten years they don't know no one knows they move they move but they don't have a deadline for the next election that is absolutely different substantive difference from the other sasame my personal taken on the matter of of the effectiveness of social movements of all social movements I have a romantic theory of social movements they all disappear ultimately by cop tation repression or when they are successful institutionalization and it is they stop in social movements so they are always going to die but the interesting thing is not if they die or not they do but how they die for what they die what is their historical productivity of their faith in a way not in three years what happens which are the seeds they plant in people's minds and in our institution that for me the most relevant question and from this point of view the fundamental battle is decided in the minds of the people in the minds of the people not in the careers of power this is the derivative of what travels in the minds of the people and for a wine like it's now in Europe crisis or legitimacy or in the night there's a huge gap in terms of crisis religious intimacy between what people think about democracy under democracy and what is the practice and the representative democracy in place a huge gap there all empirical data there as my current research project so I know quite a bit about that and then how this gap is going to be fill or not it's a it's a matter of the process but these movements have been decisive in raising hope beyond the specific political institutions in fact many of these movements in spite of everything they have the support of the majority of population in Spain Turkey Brazil Ukraine Portugal Greece in this is more complex but the last poll that I knew two years ago showed as many people more people supporting the movement and opposed in the movement the majority were people indifferent or don't know okay but it's not the same kind of hostility that the media have ordered the political establishment there had been many instances of institutional change in fact besides these fundamental questions in Iceland they change the government nationalized the banks send the bankers to to to jail and they wrote an internet-based new constitution and with the entire population debated and approved the Constitution there are other evolutions we can say we don't like this or that but impact effect yes dramatic they have changed completely the Arab world and then we can discuss in a welcome discussion but specific instances and then the positive negative and in all my the second time even if my sympathies are obvious but I'm trying to be very analytical and non normative because not being a direct act or engage directly in also this movement I think my contribution means to to be as clear as possible in my analysis and an exposure of what they are in Iran I was in London in 2000 and language movement exploited and then exploded and then the journalist and the press conference I was giving they were well you see yeah but their crash their media crash the tanks are no more Iranian new revolution Oh clearly is different this kid because there were many of them were kids not trying to overwhelm the Revolutionary Guards that had to do something else with something else 70% of the population Iran below age 78 30 70 percent below 30 56 % of Iran college grads are women and all these groups all these people in the country that has one middle bloggers by the way and in which mobile mobile communication is pervasive they were the ones who were doing this particular movement that was crash crash but not crash in recent months sir surprise surprise in the Iranian presidential election rouhani was elected supported by these people exactly what is not revolutionary but is in the line of hitomi is that the kind of a person who actually can relate to these demands of the Italian of the Alliance or civil society and you know among other things world peace is changing because of that the butterfly effect there is a gnarly skill in the streets of Tehran and suddenly suddenly only five years later we have a moderate reformist Iranian president without anyone having made this connection or anticipated turkey turkey theater and gone was the model Islamic government from all four all the ways well but was it tremendously corrupt aaanthor Italian government it has been exposed by the movement to ministers are imprisoned based a tremendous crisis we don't know how it's going to what's going to happen but they in a few months in four months the entire political system has been shaken Italy Italy Jim West Ellis was the lashes got the largest vote in the last Italian election of course all the others banded against single Stella whose program consists in dissolving the Italian parliament and replacing by direct democracy over the Internet crazy right except when the certain percent of Italian voted for that and so on and so I could go into the specific then specific demands there had been important successes in a number of times and I would not go to my long list but I can give it to you including many local impacts in the united states from the from the Occupy movement look for these two different sources but there is a major research network you buy research and Sasha Costanza talk professor at MIT is here in this room and can answer all your questions about the the local impacts in Brazil they have total personal success in transportation urban demands the turkey Durbin Rivlin project was stopped in Spain the main issue which was the mark the mortgage law and the massive eviction thousands and thousands had been stopped and so on the political impact political leads usually refused to even cooperate with the boards and movements think that all political led elites are corrupt and non-democratic so it's very little chance that there is an avenue of transformation of this do but still things move things move so I said sometimes they move first by shaking up the political ground in Greece city size now the main party in English all the others band together in racism but in Italy but lose Connick ultimately was ousted partly because of the new power relationships in Italian parliament largely linked to to this to to these critiques of all the different movements all those more complicated that why I hesitated in the most interesting thing is Brazil the where major country were the president dilma rousseff very progressive person actually two days after the movement started in in June went public and raised in the region said they are right they are right and yet you are going to have all your demands Brazil now is richer you are right and in addition you are right in the fundamental thing the corruption and non representativeness of the political class and you know what I'm going to write a new constitution changing the electoral law and I'm going to put it to refer I'm not going to the Congress and she continues to take other initiatives her latest initiative is to start controlling the internet from Brazil not to be under the control of the NSA all these were demands coming from this prison where movement in Brazil and from many of the activists in these movements now let me finish for few minutes on the urban and spatial dimensions of this network social movements first of all quickly remind you that many of these movement were linked in the origin to protest not all to protest linked to the urban crisis certainly in the United States and in Europe in terms of the trigger of the economic crisis financial crisis was the crisis of the real estate market the crisis of the mortgage financial system that were the origin of the crisis this was in fact the result of a completely speculative mode of development and housing production linked to the direct connection to the financial institutions and the mortgage system and they use the massive use hide this use of mortgages as collateral for all kind of other investments and ultimately the crisis was when the real estate market collapse and therefore many of the mobilizations have taken place as a response to the foreclosures and mass evictions in many of these countries linked to their own crisis linked to the financial aspects of the urban crisis certain in Spain have been a key issue and most successful model of development in other cases have been the challenging of the mother of the model of urban development result in not from crisis but from growth this is clearly and explicitly the case of Brazil and the case of Turkey it's also the case of Israel saying this model of urban development this organization of cities this absolutely dysfunctional city life is not what we want development years but not this developer so it's directly and explicitly a critique of the urban model of development but then at the deeper level the occupation of urban space square streets buildings is a fundamental expression of the movements everywhere and of all social movement remember they all revolutionary tradition of the barricades you include yourself behind the barricade that has no military or defensive use on the country you become the target they are tell you exactly there were you not the issue the issue that by being in the barricade without explicit ideological statement or program you define an in and out you define who is with us is here and the others please join and it's an exemplary action to rebuild an alternative space around alternative values and to fill the communal connections within the barricades as a way to oppose to the formal institutions which are spaces of exclusion in terms of the citizens rights moreover is also in urban terms the claiming of the public space the most important issue in Urban's today in my opinion creating spontaneous interaction social life fighting isolation and fighting fear is creating instant public space which is exactly the key issue in all the speculative processes of urban development and you would allow me to take five minutes of theory sorry connecting these practices these processes to the theory formulated in 1996 which I call the theory of a space of places and a space of flows because the old question in in urban is 101 what is the space easy right and then will you go crazy in your India lectures because of course the space does not exist outside us there is a space in nature this is not our space space in human terms depends on the human practices is what humans do is if dimension of our existence is not outside us has to be defined in terms of social practices so what is this definition in terms of social practices which is what I would call a material theory of space I will increase myself to of course and then I found what for me was the beginning the beginning of an answer in an old letter written by the German philosopher Leibniz in 1715 in which he proposed the following definition of a space I held the space to be something purely relative like Time theory of relativity but of human relativity relative like time space being an order of coexistence --is as time is in order of successions for space denotes in terms of possibility an order of things which exist at the same time let's call it simultaneity insofar as they exist together and is not concerned with the particular ways of existing and when we see these things together and when we see several things together we perceive this order of things among themselves ok may not be in a German philosopher I simplified my definition of space in terms of social theory in' and therefore of social practices as space is the material support of time-sharing social practices space is the material support of simultaneity now of course throughout history most of this simultaneity dependent on continuity being closed on being together that's why cities were created in the word form but then old it was until the advent of the Telegraph in which you could be simultaneous but at the same time a distance and with the acceleration of technological change in distant communication in your space a new space emerge in which simultaneity or chosen time would not depend on contiguity but on connectedness embedded in the flows of communication and therefore my point was there is a space of places which is based on simultaneity through contiguity and a space of flows in which simultaneity is based on communication networks now originally for me the space of places was the space of experience and the space of flows were the space of power because at that time in the 1990s the global communication networks were started fundamentally with financial markets telecommunication connections between major corporations and ancillary networks military networks so they were really the spaces of power and secluded with in terms of the airports and in terms of of the global transportation system etc while the space of experience where people were holding out and my point was in fact a major mechanism power imposing power on people's life was power was run from the space of flows people were living in the space of places their experience was alright but all what happened the special places is determined economically technologically politically but what happens in the space of flows right wrong because and i rectified as quickly as I could because the good thing is to observe what happened I would have immediately observed is that well these human species started to use for their own purposes not for the power that be the space of flows people for their sociality people for defensive for their family for their love relationships they started to invade and occupy the space of flows and then social movements and then politician and everybody and of course the space of the power that we also tried to occupy the space of places by building major corporate centers by organizing life at the level of the neighborhood at a time so turns out that there is power and counter power in both forms of space but the critical point then is that to actually enact social change any actor social change has to connect the counter power in the space of places we the counter power in the space of laws and that's exactly what these movements are doing by claiming the public space for citizens they need to construct a new form of space space of autonomy the space of autonomy where meet the space of flows the space of places and the mental maps that people a berate to arraignment in the institutions that run our life thank you very much okay so we have like 20 minutes okay so we have to be out of here more or less by 8:00 so we have some time for questions so I stand here I know it's too early to tell the full implications of the Occupy Wall Street movement but I if you could take them over to compare it to the Vietnam protest and one I'm curious I mean my perception is that it's even though I know there's a lot of ongoing discussion about income inequality that the traction of the wall street movement is not the same as the anti-war movement I'm wondering the impact of Kent State and and the violent protests and whether it would have been different if there had actually been a more violent clash thank you very much well yes as you say very well we don't know and these things are longer-term and depends on the permeability of political institutions that depends on how scared they are about being out of power altogether but for me the fundamental changes in every way go through people's minds without changing people's mind nothing changes and we change people mind there are some possibilities so one of the things that the movement did and we have all the pinyon polls there clearly is to put on the key on the center of the debate the public debate in the United States the notion of inequality it blew it up that this notion that that 1% and then we can get 1/5 depending which statistical calculation but the notion that one person would decide the lives of the 99% because they have the wealth and therefore with the world they by the power that notion got stuck in people mind even the politicians have started to say something about it say well but we are going to solve it trust us but interestingly enough the Davos World Economic Forum this year I mean at the end of 2013 have a survey on the global elites number-one concern of the global elite the extent of inequality the global elites part of them because their wives told the hey guys you cannot do that but part because they know that the you know if you start with this the French Revolution could come because now the genies out of the bottle everybody knows that was a dirty little secret now it's no secret at all and the internet is buzzing all over the burner seriously speaking they then they publish Davos has published the full report of the actual inequality in income sighs it says that country by country include the United States and showing that is much worse than what the movement was saying all right and this is Davos so my point is that there are mental and cultural transformation the issue is in reading democracy they are charter measuring poly terms that reaches people's life has to go through an institutional process and this is the different process has been shaped by other interests it started with electron law the way we like press in the United States is a total anachronism total and address but it has a sense that responds to the interest of the two major parties so as long as the political institutions control the way of reforming themselves they are not going to reform themselves that's why the brazilian president dilma rousseff say I'm not going to let Congress to do that I'm going to try to do it directly with the people immediately go to this is presidential ism this is the anti-democratic by the same people of course who are benefiting from from this electron same thing in Spain there have been some very good studies last week in which the two parties the two big parties conservatives together in terms of direct voting intention have about 22 scent of the world 22 still they would have the majority of city in the parliament because the electoral law is there however in the case of European countries you will see like this I cannot I usually don't predict anything I specialize in predicting the past is safer that was historians are always the most brilliant ones but they I have enough data with that part of my my research to say that the May 25th European elections to the European Parliament will be a political earthquake in Europe in which the traditional parties right and left are going to be completely cut off in normative term probably the parties and can--it who will win more at the extreme right populism okay I'm not saying it's great I'm saying it's unsustainable and that part of this is the kind of public debate that has been ignited and regenerated by this movement run over to to the side thank you very much for this optimistic talk at this point in the case of Turkey which is the one I'm most familiar with it is hard to be optimistic and it seems there are all sorts of signs that things will get worse before it gets better so I'll just mention two because I'm interested in what you think of those I mean one is you I'm sure know that the new internet law was signed into law by the president today which seriously restricts Internet freedom you know like the government is now able to remove any site in four hours according to this law and internet providers are expected to keep a list of everybody's communication for two years so this pass today that's the first one the second one which is actually more deeper is as you said with all these social movements corruption is revealed I mean there are all these wonderful things that are happening but in a recent poll 72% of the population believes that the government is corrupt but 45% would still vote for the government so this is where I think the historical and structural aspects of the country comes into play I mean because what happened is after gezi protests the base of the ruling party is even more solidified because precisely the kind of characteristics that you're talking about in the social movement you know the creativity the leader lessness secular technologically savvy etc these are the qualities that the base doesn't have and there's this almost like culture water this hatred towards the kind of people who protested in gezi so it's hard to expect at least in the electoral process to in the short run to see the I agree with your long DeRay optimism but would you comment on the short term thank you so so salt for Lemon now well first the person or not I am NOT optimistic or pessimistic my analysis I didn't say this is going to happen is not going to happen I'm optimistic myself as a person so my tone is optimistic but sometime yeah I just predicted that the European Parliament going to be full of fascists so it's it's not so but but but to take serious your point okay so the law do you think that you mentioned this is fundamental talking talking about Turkey I'm currently writing an article on with the Turkish student on on the post movement the government is the first reaction of the Dogon has been extremely repressive as you said exactly and even trying to control the Internet the poor guy doesn't know Hanoi to it they even the first speech of doggin as you remember probably went to go on television and say all this is the fault of Twitter like the social problem don't is it the fault of Twitter right so but first people are still using it they're going to use it and there's not going to they are not going to be able to shut off the internet because no one can shut off the internet because it's like shutting off the electricity Egypt tried five days and they have to change that second when the movement is already there in the streets and in people's mind is too late to shut off the internet because the main effect had been produced but what I absolutely take from from your point is the more there is danger for the reproduction of the system of power in Turin everything is closed and control legally institutionally the more this system feels the danger the more dangerous it becomes and ultimately is extreme violence and ultimately can be Syria not to Turkey fortunately still some democratic environment the European Union is deduced with each other but Syria Syria happen exactly that with the great support of Russia so Russia China and Iran say okay guys kill as many as you want no problem you at one point you don't have weapons we give you more and money we give you more so yeah yeah in this in the short term but the short term that for people maybe thousands thousands people gave in actually and the thousand people killed in Syria already this short term analytical sounds very nicely all the long delay but in practice that devastates countries people lives etcetera etcetera however the most important thing for me in Turkey and out talking specifically with Turkey is that what appeared to be a completely self protected system with no cracks and and had obtained the support of large segments of the population as an alternative to military dictatorship including for instance all the Turkish in many of the Turkish intellectuals ah this is gone I mean only the hardcore of rural masses of the turkeys Islamic groups are behind the gun but all the urban middle classes who supported the program as a reformer are gone so dependent how the electron law works but a large proportion of his support is gone and the most important in the young people the one thing that we know interpretation if you the only one we know is that the future will be the young people right yeah you could say well they will kind of cynical and and demoralize as we are when when they have all the responsibility but you know they did the way they are formed in their young age is different at least they know very well how to work with Twitter with social networking analysis to coordinate a month and sell at least this is already theirs ok so I don't know but all the information I'm having on Turkey have to go next year to tell by myself is that the the ground has shaken and that nothing it's going to be like before including gezi Park is there they have not been able to destroy it with all the promise of 11 they would get it and in many other turkey CDs the project ultra development had been a stop of course if they control the movement they come back with the same developers will do the same thing but for the time being is not gone well but that that but first they wanted to close it forever so people now gather as you know in the streets around the park you decide then okay let me process mentally that were three and articulated here on them yeah I'm wondering if you see cultural differences at work and the effectiveness of some of these movements you described a lot about togetherness is a big factor of what happens when people are there in lots of people had a great time at Occupy Wall Street but lots of people also went there and found it inconvenient arm annoying irritating slow and hard to get things done I wonder if you see a difference between some places where where these movements have been more successful versus like a more individualistic American culture that just has a harder time enjoying being together that's really good yeah sure hi thank you for a very thorough lecture um if I understand correctly your hypothesis is that all the social movement that have spawned in the recent years are some kind of new social movement characteristic to our era and you started by citing that they have many things in common that they spawn in different places but how many things have come in common um I would like to ask you a one thing that I think you didn't address in your talk was how in particularly social movements are different from previous like from the social movements of previous era because I feel in a way if you say there's all these common tropes you can say okay this is because there's like a common base or you could say they're just generic in a way I feel that the situation could be that we are in an area that allows for the general like that circumstance allows for the EC generation of social movements but the social movements themselves are usually very generic and this is bias by my own experience with Chilean social movements which I think are very well very entitled are very sort of and reflexive and in a way like a certain consistency thank you you're gonna have to process a lot well my question I I was struck by how positive the situation sounds but I I'm also often struck with that in the study of social movements people tend to focus on successful social movement so I'm wondering have you encountered some of these social movements that weren't successful or and following on that does the internet pose particular challenges negative challenges to mobilization for example in getting people to commit and and related to that also all of these movements sound very positive at least by some terms and I'm wondering about the possibility you've mentioned that these are spaces of hope but I always like this paper by sherry Berman that traces the rise of the National Socialist Party in Germany to strong civil society and social movement activity what are the potentially negative aspects of these forms of mobilization because of course there's a positive hopeful side but presumably there's also a more negative side and I'm wondering if you want to say something about absolutely like a question if I do it quickly maybe we'll have two minutes no first of all again I'm really absolutely not normative the tone is one thing the observation I have had of all these movements it corresponds to what I have reported if I would I would say that the most negative basically extreme nationalist chauvinistic xenophobic Singh at this point for instance in Europe doesn't take the form of these social movements but of political parties on the fringe that they also use the Internet but they are not not in this area the only thing I could in principle I followed very closely everything so the Ukrainian movement have some components of neo-nazi ultra nationalist groups and we have to to see where that movement goes and because there are many many different factions there but I would easily accept the hypothesis that any populist right-wing movement that uses the same kind of configuration network in their network here also could be part of this movement absolutely that way for me social movements are simply movement that are trying to change the values and the culture of societies one way or another rather than seizing power directly and politically that data point but certainly can be extremely to mystic and extremely reactionary social and they are and there but if we recognize the particular form in which this movement express then it's possible to engage in activation the activation even in Italy there are some elements in the cinque stella movement which are not very clear in terms of their good intentions for democracy so but it's important to recognize that the forms of action force organization this is critical and this is common regardless of the ideology and purpose which leads me - the your baby will take a point and there are some elements which are common to the history of summer for instance the centrality of communication the absolute centrality of communication they they the indignation they the immediate anti-establishment however what is different come on what is difference the type of communication is not the same to communicate six billion people that to communicate the people around your parish is not it's fundamentally different in terms of the size speed and complexity of the communication process that enables truly a deliberation and the construction of a particle space which is three-dimensional is in the internet is in the particles in occupy palace and is in the institutions that are submitted to this constant pressure so this is not say that the histories is cannot have some some lessons but they form for instance leaderless movement no all the movement social motor history were with leaders that was fundamental fundamental they are very few leaders in this movement very few and that's only possible because you can have a coordination through technological forms that ensured a distributed debate and distributed elements which which are there but more analytically and scholarly term I would love that we start doing some comparisons with the history of social movements from the moment I do these ones and then many stories we will do the others with baby and then the last last point about culture an individualist well you know just before the Occupy Wall Street movement the worst also this notion that I have heard from American friends and colleagues who were coming to Madrid were stranded talking oh this will never happen in America because we are individualistic it happened and actually part of the movement was linked really to some kind of communal feeling created there not everybody of course fact in and in the assignor woman that I know much better there were very deep splits in terms of race for instance but there was a beginning of communal movement that started there it's it's society it's a I I don't think that the we are individualistic societies and collectivist societies in Spain people would say they are very individualistic and in fact there is an anarchist addition in Spain which is the expression of this extreme individualism in Brazil for instance literally when the movement started I was given a huge talk to a huge crowd of very established university students and professors was not in the movement and I was explaining number of these things particulars from Spain and the per cylinder is there started a DM say well this will never happen here we are a total individualistic society the door opens and the guy says you know there were neither police this block we can don't get out of here so my point is that although it I would say cultures specify movement definitely but we can not characterize cultures in generic terms individualism versus versus communities or collectivism because we are in a different model of sociability based precisely on the internet and this sociability is what in sociology we we have identified the process as Network individualism and Network individualist is not the traditional form for individual I project my neighbor from myself but because they are mine I belong to these neighbors I can connect to other people and it's in this interaction between a more communal urban based culture and a more individualistic internet-based culture that connection is where the interesting dynamics happens at least is some of the ideas you

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Length: 86min 18sec (5178 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 20 2014