Alter-activism: emerging cultures of participation among young global justice activists

Abstract

Through ethnographic fieldwork among young global justice activists based in Barcelona, Paris, Mexico City, and San Francisco, this article examines an emerging political praxis we call alter-activism. We argue that alter-activism represents an alternative mode of (sub-)cultural practice and an emerging form of citizenship among young people that prefigures wider social changes related to political commitment, cultural expression, and collaborative practice. Alter-activism specifically involves an emphasis on lived experience and process; a commitment to horizontal, networked organisation; creative direct action; the use of new information and communication technologies (ICTs); and the organisation of physical spaces and action camps as laboratories for developing alternative values and practices. Although observers tend to associate these attributes with global justice movements generally, we contend they are more precisely linked to youthful movement sectors and are particularly visible among alter-activists. Moreover, rather than a complete break, alter-activism expands on many of the features associated with past youth movements, although it is more highly globalised, more profoundly networked, more open and collaborative, and more deeply shaped by new technologies than its predecessors.