Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in
Book cover

Social Movements in the Global South pp 178–199Cite as

Palgrave Macmillan

Notes Towards Prefigurative Epistemologies

  • Chapter

Part of the book series: Rethinking International Development Series ((RID))

Abstract

In a rundown community centre in La Independencia neighbourhood of La Vega shanty town, Caracas, in August 2006, members of Comités de Tierra Urbana (Urban Land Committees, CTUs) came together to develop an analysis of their experiences of participating in the CTU and the successes and barriers they had encountered in their strategy to ‘democratize the city’1. The meeting lasted for two consecutive weekends during which the 20 or so participants began by discussing their history of involvement in the CTUs. These histories were written up and displayed around the room. Facilitators then began discussions orientated towards identifying the major themes that united participants’ experiences in order to develop a strategic orientation and understanding of the CTU project in La Vega. This would also form the basis of a document to be taken by elected participants to a regional level meeting to be held a number of months afterward. The key themes that came out of that meeting were the relationship of the CTUs of La Vega with the Oficina Técnica Nacional para la Regularización de la Tenencia de Tierra Urbana (National Technical Office for the Legalization of Urban Land Ownership, OTN) – the state institution to which the CTUs are attached, especially around the question of the granting of funds to the Campamiento Pionero project of La Vega, the tensions that arise in light of the different demands and logics of CTU members working in the community and those working in the state, the problems in moving from the gaining of individual land title towards democratic control over land and services, and the problems of maintaining community participation in CTU projects

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   84.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info
Hardcover Book
USD   109.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Durable hardcover edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  • Amsler, S. (2009). “Ethnographies of Critique: Critical Judgement as Cultural Practice’, Paper presented at The Future(s) of Critical Theory Conference, Frankfurt Am Main, 19–21 March.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bailey, D. (2009). The Political Economy of European Social Democracy: A Critical Realist Approach. Ontological Explorations Series (London and New York: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Barker, C. and Cox, L. (2002). “ “What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?” Academic and Activist Forms of Movement Theorizing’, Alternative Futures and Popular Protests, 8th Annual Conference, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, April.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bevington, D. and Dixon, C. (2005). “Movement-Relevant Theory: Rethinking Social Movement Scholarship and Activism’, Social Movement Studies, Vol. 4, No. 3, 185–208.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bhaskar, R. (1975 [1997]). A Realist Theory of Science, 2nd edn (London: Verso).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bhaskar, R. (1998). The Possibility of Naturalism, 3rd edn (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonefeld, W. (1992). “Social Constitution and the Form of the Capitalist State’, in W. Bonefeld, R. Gunn and K. Psychopedis (eds), Open Marxism, Vol.1: Dialectics and History (London: Pluto Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Bonefeld, W. (2003). ‘Human Practice and Perversion: Beyond Autonomy and Structures’, in W. Bonefeld (ed.), Revolutionary Writing: ‘Common Sense’ Essays in Post-Political Politics (New York: Autonomedia): 73–88.

    Google Scholar 

  • Charnock, G. (2008). ‘Challenging New State Spatialities: The Open Marxism of Henri Lefebvre’, Manchester Papers in Political Economy, No. 03/08, Centre for International Politics, University of Manchester.

    Google Scholar 

  • CTU (2003). Democratization de la cuidad y transformation urbana (Caracas: Coo- peracion Solidaria Instituto Municipal de Pubicaciones), available at http://www.banap.gov.ve/ctu/ctu.pdf. accessed on 14 February 2010.

  • Deleuze, G. (1994). Difference and Repetition (New York: Columbia University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Dinerstein, A. (2003). ‘Que se Vayan Todos! Popular Insurrection and the Asambleas Barriales in Argentina’, Bulletin of Latin American Research, Vol. 22, No. 2, 187–200.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Escobar, A. (1992). ‘Imagining a Post-Development Era? Critical Thought, Development and Social Movements’, Social Text, Vol. 31–32, 20–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Fedirici, S. (2004). Caliban and the Witch: Women, the Body and Primitive Accumulation (Canada: Autonomia Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Fernandes, S. (2008). ‘Barrio Women and Popular Politics in Chavez’s Venezuela’, Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 49, No. 3, 97–128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Foucault, M. and Deleuze, G. (1977). ‘Intellectuals and Power: A Conversation Between Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze’, in D. F. Bouchard (ed.), Language, Counter Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews (Oxford: Basil Blackwell): 205–17.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fox, M. (2006). ‘Venezuela’s Urban Land Committees Hold First National Meeting of its Kind’, VenezuelaAnalysis.com, 6 November, http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/news/2051. accessed on 14 February 2010.

  • Freire, P. (2000). The Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum).

    Google Scholar 

  • Freire, P. (2006). Pedagogia da Autonomia: Saberes necessarios a practica educativa (Sao Paulo: Paz e Terra).

    Google Scholar 

  • Gilbert, J. (2009). Catching the Knowledge Wave? The Knowledge Society and the Future of Education (New Zealand: NZXER Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Holloway, J. (2002a). Change the World Without Taking Power: The Meaning of Revolution Today (London: Pluto Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Holloway, J. (2002b). ‘Zapatismo and the Social Sciences’, Capital and Class, Vol. 78, 153–60.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • MacIntyre, A. (1994). The Macintyre. Reader, in Kelvin Knight (ed.) (Cambridge: Polity Press): 223–34.

    Google Scholar 

  • Mohanty, C. T. (2003). Feminisms Without Borders: Decolonizing Theory, Practicising Solidarity (Durham, NC and London: Duke University Press).

    Book  Google Scholar 

  • Motta, S. (2009). ‘Old Tools and New Movements in Latin America: Political Science as Gatekeeper or Intellectual Illuminator’, Latin American Politics and Society, Vol. 51, No.1, 31–56.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ruiz, F. (2007). Francisco Wuytack: La Revolution de la Conciencia (Caracas: Ministerio de la Cultura, Fundacion Editorial el Perro y la Rana).

    Google Scholar 

  • Santos, B. De Sousa (ed.) (2007). Another Knowledge is Possible: Beyond Northern Epistemologies (London: Verso).

    Google Scholar 

  • Santos, B. De Sousa (2008). ‘Depolarised Pluralities: A Left with a Future’, in P. Barrett, D. Chavez and C. Rodriguez-Garavito (eds), The New Latin American Left: Utopia Reborn (London: Pluto Press): 255–71.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sayer, A. (1992). Method in Social Science: A Realist Approach (London: Routledge).

    Google Scholar 

  • Shukaitis, S. (2009). Imaginal Machines: Autonomy and Self-Organization in the Revolutions ofEveryday Life (London and New York: Minor Compositions, Autonomedia).

    Google Scholar 

  • Taylor, P. (1993). The Texts of Paulo Freire (Buckingham: Open University Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Tischler, S. (2008). ‘The Crisis of the Classical Canon of the Class Form’, in W. Bonefeld (ed.), Subverting the Present: Imagining the Future (New York: Autonomedia): 161–78.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wacquant, J. D. and Bourdieu, P. (1992). An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press).

    Google Scholar 

  • Wainwright, H. (1994). ‘The Theory and Politics of Knowledge’, in H. Wainwright (ed.), Arguments for a New Left: Answering the Free Market Right (Oxford: Wiley- Blackwell): 90–112.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wainwright, H. (2003). ‘A “Mass of Sense”: Knowledge, Power and Democracy’, in H. Wainwright (ed.), Reclaim the State (London: Verso): 1–29.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wainwright, H. (2004). ‘New Politics: Principles, Practice and Challenges’, document available from the Transnational Institute, http://www.tni.org/es/archives/act/2367 accessed on 14 February 2010.

  • Wainwright, H. (2005). ‘Why Participatory Democracy Matters - and Movements Matter to Participatory Democracy’, document available from the Transnational Institute, http://www.tni.org/archives/archives_wainwright_matter accessed on 14 February 2010.

  • Wainwright, H. (2009). ‘Positively Public QED’, in H. Wainwright with M. Little (eds), Public Service Reform, But Not as We Know It! How Democracy Can Transform Public Services (Newcastle: Compass and UNISON): 167–79.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Authors
  1. Sara C. Motta
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Nottingham, UK

    Sara C. Motta (Lecturer in Politics and Political Economy) (Lecturer in Politics and Political Economy)

  2. Department of Sociology, University of Bergen, Norway

    Alf Gunvald Nilsen (Postdoctoral Fellow) (Postdoctoral Fellow)

Copyright information

© 2011 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Motta, S.C. (2011). Notes Towards Prefigurative Epistemologies. In: Motta, S.C., Nilsen, A.G. (eds) Social Movements in the Global South. Rethinking International Development Series. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230302044_8

Download citation

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation