18 Globalization, Social Movements and Transnational Networks

Contents

1. Objective

2. Introduction

3. Learning Outcome

4. Transnational Networks and Anti-globalisation Social Movements

5. Resistance to Globalisation: Causes and Dimensions

6. Tribals, Mining and Global Capital – The Role of Transnational Networks

7. The Trans-Local Space in Niyamgiri Movement

8. Summary

1.   Objectives

The objective of this module is to provide a conceptual framework for interpreting the complex interplay between globalisation, social movements and transnational networks. The module seeks to assess the emergence of social movements in response to globalization and examines how transnational networks are impacting social movement trajectory and outcomes in the context of globalization through a case study from the eastern Indian state of Odisha.

2.    Introduction

The systematic study of social movements has come a long way from its interpretation as ‘crowd psychology’ and ‘collective behaviour’, focusing on large-scale mobilisations in the streets as symbols of social dysfunction and irrationality (Smelser 1962) to the ‘resource mobilisation’ approach of viewing movements as the rational enterprise of movement entrepreneurs (McCarthy and Zald 1977) pursuing collective interests. The studies of the anti-globalisation social movements (AGSM) (Smith et al. 1997; Smith and Johnston 2002) as an attempt to counter globalisation from above through globalisation from below, assume significance in this context. The anti-globalisation movements include an array of protests and resistance actions of social groups and individuals in response to the dislocating consequences of neoliberal globalisation and its effects in the spheres of the economy, politics and identity/culture. The expansion of capitalism has historically encountered opposition from social groups affected by its disruptive and disentitling consequences (Saguier 2012). Yet, it is during the mid-1990s that the conception of anti-globalisation social movements in the forms of resistance to globalization has entered the sociology literature in a meaningful way.

The AGSM approach begins from the assumption that there have been profound changes in recent movements due to structural shifts caused by neo-liberal globalisation. The AGSMs are depicted as organised in socially embedded, diffuse, horizontal networks; as primarily concerned with culture and identity; and as aiming to constrain state and economic power rather than to gain access to it (Cohen 1982; Melucci 1989).

Some Key Sociological Definitions of Globalization

Immanuel Wallerstein in his book ‘The Modern World System: Capitalist Agriculture and the Origins of the European World-Economy in the Sixteenth Century’, believes that “globalization represents the triumph of a capitalist world economy tied together by a global division of labour.” David Harvey, in The Condition of Postmodernity defines globalization as “…the compression of time and space.” Anthony Giddens, in The Consequences of Modernity says that “Globalization can thus be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant localities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.” Arjun Appadurai opines that “The critical point is that both sides of the coin of global cultural process today are products of the infinitely varied mutual contest of sameness and difference on a stage characterized by radical disjunctures between different sorts of global flows and the uncertain landscapes created in and through these disjunctures. With  the  emergence  of  what  Manuel  Castells  calls  a  “global  network  society”,  social movements and their participants seem to follow a new protest trajectory. A broad series of actors, including international non-governmental organisations and transnational coalitions, are acting in response to the development challenges posed by globalization. Even though transnational networks (TNWs) and movements are not per se new phenomena (Hierlmeier 2002, Seidman in Guidry et al. 2000: 344), what differentiates the contemporary scenario from its historical predecessors is the sharpened capacities to co-operate and coordinate movement activities through networks across nation-state boundaries and their emergence as a potent political force to reckon with.

3.Learning Outcome

In this module, we will learn about the dialectical interface between globalisation and social movements as mediated through the mechanism of transnational networks. The factors that have contributed to the emergence of these anti-globalisation resistances particularly in the global south will be critically analysed in the context of an anti-bauxite mining movement by a hill tribe in the eastern Indian state of Odisha. The conspectus of the case study would enable students to develop a basic understanding of and critical insights into the implications of neo-liberal globalisation for subaltern groups like tribals by highlighting among other factors, the role of transnational networks in empowering the marginalised to rise in peaceful protest against the combined forces of global capital and local state. 

Some Basics of Social Movements

Social movements are focused, organized groups motivated to work toward a common goal These groups might be endeavoring to bring about change (Occupy Wall Street), to resist change (anti-globalization movement), or to provide a political right to be heard to those who are otherwise disenfranchised (civil rights movements). Sociologically, there are three perspectives of studying social movements: functionalist perspective, conflict perspective and symbolic interaction perspective.

The functionalist perspective centers itself around the central questions of why social movements develop, why they go on to exist, and what social purposes they serve. The conflict perspective deals with the creation and reproduction of inequality. It basically seeks to discover how social movements are produced through systematic inequality, and how social change is steady, swift, and inevitable. The symbolic interaction perspective studies the day-to-day interaction of social movements, the meanings that individuals connect to involvement in such movements, and the individual experience of social change. Social movements can occur on the local, national, or the global arena. Social movements can be classified as reform movements, revolutionary movements, religious / redemptive movements, resistance movements.

4. Transnational Networks and Anti-globalisation Social Movements:

Transnational networks (TNWs) could be interpreted as a set of relationships that connects discrete entities (people, communities, or other groups) in more than one country for the sharing of information, experiences, or resources towards a common objective. The expression “transnational” symbolizes the cross-national organizing processes amid participants of the movement. A transnational network may not essentially be a global social network but necessitates the communication and cooperation of movement actors from no less than two different countries. A network differs from an organization in that network members are only weakly tied, relatively autonomous and limit their work together to certain, mutually agreed on goals (adapted from Colchester et al. 2003: 2; Granovetter 1983). The TNWs provide the linking mechanisms through which social movement participants engage in collective action across national boundaries, are involved in conflictual relations with their opponents by developing a shared and distinct collective identity to bring about, avert, or undo social, political and cultural change outside the conventional political institutions through extra-parliamentary strategies.

They have been shown to support social movements as catalysts, structural units of movements, sources of information and resources, and by helping to reframe people’s understandings and norms (Diani and McAdam 2003). For each of these functions, the contribution of the TNWs could only be realized in partnership with local and national groups. The broader scope of TNWs enables them to collect information, develop strategies and capacities, and identify contacts outside of the usual scope of national or local groups.

4.1. Strengths of TNWs:

Transnational networks contain several advantages some of which are as stated below: 

First, funding people to get together – they are able to collect funds which is very necessary to carry out any task from multiple sources to sustain protest activities in different parts of the world. 

Second, knowledge of broader policy frameworks – they offer a much larger framework necessary to link a local movement with global developments.

Third, independent assessments and critique – they are able to assess any development on their own and formulate a critique that is quite different from those offered by either political parties or stakeholder close to the state agencies. 

Fourth, wider repertoire of strategies and ability to increase capacities – international networks have access to a wider range of information about strategies and capacities that have been tried or developed elsewhere that they can share with local groups;

Fifth, contacts for exchanges, media and campaigns – international networks have a wider range of contacts for facilitating exchanges across countries. They can also help local groups identify influential or strategic international media contacts;

Sixth, dissemination – international networks can greatly aid in the dissemination of local stories. They can bring excellent writing skills, an ability to turn out information quickly, established and well-known websites and newsletters, and a large network of contacts;

Seventh, confidence building – the involvement of an international network ‘on the ground’ or their endorsement of a local social movement acts as a morale booster for grassroots movement actors.

4.2 Limitations of TNWs:

First, some TNWs do not see it as their mandate to work with local groups. They feel they can have more of an impact working through focal points and larger scale organizations that have a wider reach;

Second, the possibilities or need for collaboration are often not apparent to TNWs unless they are active at the local level. This puts them in a difficult situation where they can only become aware of local needs for collaboration if they are already active;

Third, the activities of local groups are often informal, unanticipated, urgent and small-scale. Raising funds for such activities can be difficult at short-notice, even for international networks;

Fourth, TNWs may also lack the flexibility to respond quickly to calls for assistance. With many requests, they may not be able to easily distinguish from a distance which causes are the most important;

Fifth, TNWs may be concerned about stepping on the toes of their national counterparts or national counterparts may feel their international ‘partners’ are irrelevant to local causes;

Finally, language barriers and cultural gaps can make it difficult, if not impossible, for TNWs to link closely with local groups.

5. Resistance to Globalisation: Causes and Dimensions

Separated from traditional social movements, such as trade unions/labour movements, the AGSMs are innovative forms of collective action resisting the neo-liberal globalisation. The AGSM could be interpreted as a variety of the so-called new social movements (NSMs). The TNWs facilitate the awareness that local events are embedded in global processes, thus making global approaches a necessary condition to redress the negative consequences of globalization. In other words, the resistance to globalization through the TNWs emerges as a category for thinking and acting in a context of interconnected capitalism.

Factors contributing to the emergence of the globalisation resistance movements

Global capitalism, revolution of information technologies; centrality of a global financial market in all productive activities; transnationalization of production; privatization of global commons; salience of transnational corporations, rising social inequality and ecological degradation and the subjective conditions associated with the rise of a global consciousness. The resistance to globalization has taken concrete shape as part of the dialectical and co-determining processes of interaction between TNWs and organized grassroots mobilization beginning mostly towards the mid 1990s. It is an expression of a generalized discontent with the consequences of neoliberal globalization. While “accumulation by exploitation” (Harvey 2003),  like  the  workplace  centered  form  of  accumulation  has  historically  generated  the traditional class-based labour movements and trade unions, the AGSM as a type of new social movement has emerged in response to “accumulation by dispossession” (like privatization of land and forest) and around issues such as land rights and tribal identity (adapted from Hickey and Bracking 2005: 853).

Arguments in favour of Neoliberal Globalisation

Advocates of Neoliberal Globalisation argue that market competition should be the organising principle of ever more areas of life from the production of cars, to delivery of health services, a policy which requires stripping the state of “excessive involvement” in the economy and society. In the South, the IMF and World Bank took advantage of the 1980s’ debt crisis to insist that debtor countries remove the government from the economy as the price of getting credit. Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAP) required governments to redirect their spending away from public services and publicly-owned enterprises into debt servicing. State industries were sold to private companies; public services were “contracted out”; development projects “franchised” to private companies; state spending slashed; user charges for basic services introduced or increased; and markets deregulated. Transnational Corporations have benefited from neo-liberal globalisation through the four related processes of:

• Privatisation;
• Deregulation;
• Reallocation of subsidies; and
• Pooling of national sovereignty to form new trading blocks.

The rise of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico’s poorest southern areas in 1994, for instance, was in response to the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) which is often taken as a landmark event in what has come to be a new form global resistance politics. As an indigenous and peasant movement, the Zapatistas resist imposition of a universal model of development advanced by NAFTA and based on the commodification of social life. They succeeded in galvanizing a transnational solidarity movement to voice their local conflict as intimately related with the dynamics of corporate capitalism. 

Transnational corporations have also been targets of resistance actions throughout the world. Virulent conflicts engage local populations, companies and public authorities in disputes over the control, distribution of costs and benefits, and sustainable development implications of natural resources. The struggle of the Ogoni people against Shell over oil in Nigeria, for instance, has received widespread international attention during the 1990s.

6.     Tribals, Mining and Global Capital – The Role of Transnational Networks in Niyamgiri Resistance Movement

The following case study of an AGSM could be interpreted in terms of Karl Polanyi’s double movement i.e., the imperative of economic transformation and the need for social protection. This protective movement, as the classical Polanyian counter-movement, opposes the neo-liberal globalisation and its market epistemology. Historically, the Polanyian counter-movements refer to the self-protective measures taken by society to cope with the disruptive and polarizing effects of industrial capitalism in England during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The contemporary significance of these counter-movements emerges from their attempt to negate the globalisation project to the extent it represents the universalisation of capitalist modernity – at least in its neoliberal form. These AGSMs represent a protest against neo-liberal globalisation’s untenably contradictory promise of social regulation and social emancipation, wherein emancipation collapses into market regulation i.e., to be free is to accept market regulation. Resistance to globalization is about the struggles to overturn the trend towards a capitalist economy disengaged from its socially-defined functions. It has led to counter-movements in the forms of societal contestation against the effects of a market-driven integration (Munck 2007).

The following account of a subaltern (Adivasi) resistance to global capitalism in the state of Odisha, places emphasis on community autonomy, identity politics, communal rights and rights to a variety of traditional practices, which represents a defence of the environment, a critique of the commodification of nature inspired by an indigenous spiritual worldview. The counter-hegemonic resistance by the tribals is directed against the capitalist practice of creating wealth at the expense of depriving peoples of their rights, leading to unprecedented levels of social inequality, disempowerment and ecological destruction.

This anti-bauxite mining protest movement in the Niyamgiri hills of Odisha has to be seen in the global context of intensifying resistances to the destructive impacts of the mining industry among the indigenous people in countries along the Andes Mountain range, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Australia and Africa. Increasingly these community struggles link up with shareholder activism in countries where the mining corporations are legally registered. Local indigenous struggles reach global dimensions through the channel of transnational networks.

The protective movement of tribals in this Fifth Scheduled area of south-western Odisha against bauxite mining illustrates the politics of place and networks in the context of neo-liberal globalisation. Notwithstanding the existence of many statutory measures to safeguard tribals and forest, the overall thrust of the Odisha government in the post-liberalisation and globalisation era, is in the direction of commercial exploitation of the state’s natural resources for private capital-led extractive industrialisation. The state policies and actions aim at making Odisha an ‘investor friendly’ destination by providing various concessions and state support to corporates, both national and multinational. This movement emerged in the early 2000s as a result of the deepening of the neoliberal model of development in the post-globalisation era in a mineral resource rich yet poverty-stricken tribal area of Odisha. The tribal protest came in the wake of the granting of bauxite mining rights by the Odisha government to the global mining giant Vedanta Aluminium Limited (VAL), the Indian subsidiary of the London-based transnational, Vedanta Resources Plc. The VAL had built a huge alumina refinery at Lanjigarh in the south-western Kalahandi district of Odisha, right on the source of the Bamsadhara river, at the foothills of the Niyamgiri mountain range. The location was dictated by a lease to mine bauxite on the Niyamgiri hills (Padel and Das 2006). The Niyamgiri hill is a highly forested zone and is sacred to the Kondhs. Apart from having some rich reserves of high quality bauxite, the Niyamgiri hill is the abode of one of India’s most vulnerable and traditional hill tribes, the Dongria Kondhs.

The bauxite mining operations of VAL would affect some 8,000 Dongria and Kutia Kondhs in the affected tribal villages spread across Kalahandi and neighbouring Rayagada districts of the state. The forested slopes and streams of the Niyamgiri hills provide the means of sustenance for Dongaria and Kutia Kondh tribes. These are Scheduled Tribes, enjoying Constitutional protection for their land rights in the entire Niyamgiri hills area, which is a Fifth Schedule zone. These tribes are also notified by the government as ‘Particularly Vulnerable Tribal Groups’ and eligible for special protection. While the Dongaria Kondhs live in the upper reaches of the Niyamgiri hills, the Kutia Kondhs inhabit the foothills. The Niyamgiri hills are the sole habitat of the Dongria Kondhs, whose distinctive identity is inextricably linked to the ecological integrity of the mountain. The Kondhs regard the Niyamgiri hills as sacred and essential for their survival. The bauxite mining site is amongst the highest points in the hills and is considered especially important as a sacred site. The tribals depend on the Niyamgiri hills for their livelihoods as well as for their socio-cultural practices (Saxena et.al. 2010).

To fight for their rights, the tribals of Niyamgiri area had come together under the banner of the Niyamgiri Suraksha Samiti. As a red-green movement, the anti-mining movement was trying to assert four rights of the Kondh tribe: to their identity (hence, the right to be different), to their territory (as the space for exercising identity), to a measure of local autonomy (as guaranteed by FRA and PESA Acts), and to their own vision of development by protecting their ecology and livelihood.

In the encounter with the state (Odisha government), market (VAL) and civil society actors (national and international NGOs and other actors), the movement has developed a unique political-ecology framework that articulates the life project of the hill tribal communities-embedded in place-based notions of territory, production systems, and the environment-with the political vision of the social movement, incarnated in a view of the Niyamgiri as a ‘region-territory of Dongria Kondhs’. In this way the movement can legitimately be interpreted in terms of the defence of practices of cultural, economic and ecological identities and rights of the tribals.

The differing perceptions of and demands over the natural resources of Niyamgiri reflect the conflict between the local tribal communities on one hand and the state and private (transnational) capital on the other. While the Niyamgiri hills were seen only in terms of their capacity for supplying bauxite ore by the state (Odisha government) and market (VAL), the tribal people had sought to identify a plurality of ecological, socio-cultural and livelihood functions for the forest, which appears to be counter to the extractive development and profit-making logic of a corporate-friendly state and global capital. The utilisation of Niyamgiri as a bauxite-mining site has led and would further lead to the exclusion of tribals living on the mountains from accessing its resources. The protective movement of Niyamgiri tribals represents a counter-movement against neo-liberal globalisation and its attempts at regulating indigenous people and their resources through the market mechanism.

This movement not only challenges the rationality and market epistemology of neo-liberal globalisation, it also suggests new horizons of meaning and action (as in the case of Zapatista movement, with their emphasis on rights, humanity, dignity and respect for difference) and alternative conceptions of the economy, nature and development (as in the case of the social movement of black communities of the Colombian Pacific). As one strand of counter-hegemonic globalisation movement, the Niyamgiri movement seeks to advance the goals of equality and difference at the same time. This struggle for difference-in-equality and equality-in-difference is a feature of many contemporary anti-globalisation movements.

7. The Trans-Local Space in Niyamgiri Movement

The Niyamgiri movement has unfolded in a trans-local space involving particular configurations of actors with changing identities and networks that both transcend and transgress national boundaries. The trans-locality of anti-globalisation resistance movements like the one in Niyamgiri is characterized by the multiplicity of local spaces distributed across different nation states and involving particular configurations of actors, resources, territory and relationships of power (Sassen 2006). These spaces are trans-local because they both transgress and transcend locality and have the ability to change the local spaces from which they emerge. The local in trans-local is not about a fixed space but is about a network, describing not the just characteristics of populations or cultures or places but focusing instead on the movement of people, ideas, cultures and political identity (Mandaville 1999).

The four features of trans-locality involved here include (Sassen 2006: 390): the prevalence of horizontal and lateral networks that are different from vertical governance arrangements of nation states and international institutions; multilevel forms of governance and authority at local, regional, national and international spaces; a prevalence of private actors that operate in trans-local spaces in the form of trans-local corporations (VAL), international NGOs and activist groups (Action Aid, Survival International) and community organizations and local protest groups (Niyamgiri Surakhya Samiti). Criticism of VAL’s mining plans focuses on three areas – negative environmental, socio-cultural and economic impacts on local communities and the long-term consequences of expanding extractive industries in the region.

The Niyamgiri resistance movement as a trans-local AGSM involved a motley web of individuals and organizations opposed to the bauxite mining project. A number of local, state, national and international NGOs, political parties and their associated organisations, citizen’s groups and Delhi and Bhubaneswar-based activists have become involved in the movement. The complex interplay of networks both national and transnational is more than evident in the movement. A multinational NGO campaign by Action Aid started in 2007 and gained momentum as other transnational groups like Survival International joined the movement. The global human rights group Amnesty International entered the fray by criticizing human rights violations in the refinery area and around the proposed mine. The NGOs used a variety of horizontal and lateral networks to mobilize their resources against mining (Kraemer, Whiteman and Banerjee 2013). The state (Govt. of Odisha) is also a key actor in this network and represents a more vertical mode of governance in its authority of granting permits and providing development infrastructure. Private actors in the form of corporations (VAL) and its contractors, NGOs and community organizations are also key players in this trans-local space. The interactions between the tribals, the state, the corporation and NGOS took place at multiple trans-local sites: at the location of the mine itself and the surrounding villages, at the state capital, at the national capital as well as the company’s headquarters in London.

The resistance movement led the Supreme Court of India in 2013 to give a direction to the Govt. of Odisha to place the issues of violation of religious and cultural rights of Dongaria and Kutia Kandha tribes including their rights of worship over the Niyamgiri hills, known as Niyam-Raja, for consideration by the affected Gram Sabhas as per the provisions of FRA and PESA Acts (Supreme Court of India 2013). The unanimous vote by 12 affected Gram Sabhas in Rayagada and Kalahandi districts, rejecting Vedanta Aluminium’s design to extract bauxite from the Niyamgiri hills, has finally put an end to VAL’s bauxite mining plans. This is a historic victory for a peaceful anti globalisation movement and sets a significant precedent that could determine the course of similar movements in other tribal areas of the country.

8.  Summary:

An attempt has been made here to decipher the dialectical interface between globalisation-induced social movements and transnational networks through the prism of a tribal protest against mining by a transnational corporation in Niyamgiri. The case study brings out how social movements emerge to defend and recover threatened forms of life, social organization, economy and ecology when the forces of globalisation threaten to colonize people’s life-worlds (Habermas 1971, 1987; Escobar 1995: 222-226). Ironically, globalisation also generates mechanisms for contesting it by expanding and complicating the strategic choices available and forcing movement actors to look beyond their national boundaries to counter it. The TNWs which emerge in such paradoxical contexts, as in the Niyamgiri movement, provide the linking mechanisms through which social movement participants engage in collective action across national boundaries and are involved in conflictual relations with their opponents by developing a shared and distinct collective identity. The TNWs have been shown to support, as in the Niyamgiri case, local social movements as catalysts, structural units, sources of resource, and by helping to reframe affected people’s understandings and norms of marginalisation, protest and empowerment.