Latin American Social Movements and the Social Forum Process

Abstract

Since its founding meeting in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 2001, the World Social Forum (WSF) has quickly become the largest international gathering of progressive social activists seeking to resist neoliberal globalization and to democratize the global economy. Organized annually or biannually by an International Council and Local Organizing Committee in various cities and countries, the WSF has drawn as many as 155,000 people in 2005, with participants from more than 150 countries. Local, national, regional, and thematic forums have also been organized throughout Latin America. Although their role is contested among those espousing horizontal and autonomous forms of organizing, socialist parties and politicians in Latin America have actively participated within and even helped to fund the social forum process. Youth, who predominate among attendees, organized their own Intercontinental Youth Camp. Social forum meetings, and the processes through which they are organized, have helped to strengthen and expand international, cross-generational, and cross-movement ties among Latin American social movement activists, and helped activists to share ideas and deepen their political consciousness. Formal social movement assemblies, which endorse international days of action and transnational campaigns, and public marches and other collective actions occurring during these meetings have helped to move these meetings beyond “talk shops.”