Progress in Human Geography

This paper’s focus is what we call 'autonomous geographies' – spaces where there is a desire to constitute non-capitalist, collective forms of politics, identity and citizenship. These are created through a combination of resistance and creation, and a questioning and challenging of dominant laws and social norms. The concept of autonomy permits a better understanding of activists’ aims, practices and achievements in alter-globalisation movements. We explore how autonomous geographies are multi-scalar strategies that weave together spaces and times, constituting in-between and overlapping spaces, blending resistance and creation, and combining theory and practice. We flesh out two examples of how autonomous geographies are made through collective decision-making and autonomous social centres. Autonomous geographies provide a useful toolkit for understanding how spectacular protest and everyday life are combined to brew workable alternatives to life beyond capitalism.

This paper is about what we call ‘autonomous geographies’ – those spaces where people desire to constitute non-capitalist, egalitarian and solidaristic forms of political, social, and economic organisation through a combination of resistance and creation. Inspired by groups such as the Mexican Zapatistas, the concept of autonomy is being increasingly employed by anti-capitalist activists such as the Wombles, Disobidientis and Dissent! to structure and articulate their practices and aims. At the same time, a reinvigoration and reinterpretation of autonomist Marxism has provided a pathway towards a more socially just society (Cleaver, 1979; Hardt and Negri, 2000, 2005; Katsiaficas, 1997; Wright, 2002).

We have coined the term ‘autonomous geographies’ as part of a substantive and linguistic intervention, responding to multiple crises. We make no excuses for this; calling forth autonomy does not simply lead to concrete solutions to change the world. Nor is the term a panacea; to offer it as such would sustain the problems of blueprints which plague the contemporary world. However, autonomous geographies are part of a vocabulary of urgency, hope and inspiration, a call to action that we can

dismantle wage labour, the oil economy, or representative democracy, and that thousands of capable and workable micro-examples exist. A focus on autonomy is simultaneously a documentation of where we are, and a projection of where we could be. As a narrative of realism and idealism, this paper -- and our research -- is an attempt to document radical and workable ‘futures in the present’ (Cleaver, 1993) and to find escape routes out of this capitalist existence (Gibson-Graham, 1996).

The paper’s objectives are threefold. First in order to understand autonomy’s importance, we need to explore its usage, meanings and widespread practices in activists’ everyday activities. Second, we discuss how autonomy can facilitate a more nuanced understanding of anti-capitalist movements. Finally, a politics of hope infuses this paper; making autonomous geographies comprises important moments of resistance. Autonomous practices have already resulted in real changes for some participants, for example social centres’ provision of space and food, and survival strategies in Argentina (Chatterton, 2005). Beyond examples of success, we look further than constrained pragmatic visions and “interrupt space and time … to open up perspectives on what might be” (Pinder, 2002, p.229).

Our focus on autonomy is an attempt to clarify what can seem a diffuse concept, and a way to explore the materialisation of utopian visions. First, autonomy has become one of the hallmarks of varied activism, forming part of the alter-globalisation movement which seeks to challenge, disrupt, and re-imagine our understandings of political, economic and cultural processes (Featherstone, 2003). Alter-globalisation is the preferred term as it emphasizes anti-capitalist and social justice movements’ creativity, celebrating the movement’s transnationality and their solidarity networks. This multi-scalar and multi-faceted activism manifests itself through global and regional convergences (such as People's Global Action meetings or large-scale demonstrations coinciding with ministerial meetings of the G8, the World Trade Organisation or the European Union), through localised autonomous spaces and alternative processes (such as social centres, eco-villages, alternative currencies, food production, housing co-operatives and self education), and experiments in non hierarchical organisation and consensus-based decision-making. Most importantly, we explore the role of everyday practices in these movements’ constitution, as they work alongside -- indeed comprise vital building blocks for – mass protests.

Second, a growing critique of movements’ failure to suggest, or indeed deliver, workable alternatives stems from autonomous activists’ reluctance to build permanent organisations, formulate strategies, or adopt traditional representative structures. Hence, the mainstream media often treat them inaccurately, seeking the familiarity of spokespeople, manifestos and organisational coherence. Some scholars have also critiqued their localisation, arguing that local responses are inadequate to challenge globalisation (Bauman, 2002; Cameron and Palan, 2004; Peck and Tickell, 2002). To clarify, we propose to use the concept of autonomous geographies to understand alter-globalisation movements as a progressive politics, not grounded through a particular spatial strategy but as a relational and contextual entity drawing together resistance, creation and solidarity across multiple times and places.

We begin by defining autonomy. First, autonomy is a contextual and situated tendency which has many trajectories. We are concerned with movements that seek freedom and connection beyond nation-states, international financial institutions, global corporations and neoliberalism – what we might otherwise call global anti-capitalism. Second, autonomy is a socio-spatial strategy, in which complex networks

and relations are woven between many autonomous projects across time and space, with potential for translocal solidarity networks. Third, the interstitial nature of autonomy means the lack of an 'out there' from which to build autonomy, hence creating a constant interplay between autonomy and non-autonomy tendencies. Fourth, autonomy is resistance and creation, a tendency that proposes but also refuses. Finally autonomy is praxis, a commitment to the revolution of the everyday. A necessary rejection of routes to power means a faith in collective process, non-hierarchical decision-making and mutual aid. In the second part of the paper, we look at how autonomy is made and re-made by activists in two examples (decision-making structures at a recent convergence space; autonomous social centres). We conclude by considering the power and limitations of autonomy and ask ‘to what extent can autonomous geographies challenge everyday realities of capitalist ways of organising society?’

The inspiration for this piece has been personal, political and academic (Chatterton, 2002, Chatterton and Hollands 2003, Gordon and Chatterton 2004, Chatterton, 2005; Pickerill, 2003a, 2003b and 2004). A strong body of geographical work has sought to be socially relevant and pursue participatory and ethical approaches, often beyond the academy (Blomley, 1994; Pain, 2003; Cloke, 2002; Kitchen and Hubbard, 1999). We are closely embedded in a number of activist groups (in particular a social centre in Leeds called The Common Place, Dissent! a network of Resistance against the G8, as well as an ecological land project, and a housing co-operative), which represent these difficult moments of negotiating between tendencies towards autonomy and non-autonomy (or heteronomy). Hence, we are unashamedly commentators on -- and also embedded participants within -- autonomous projects. Our encounters are as academic-activists, undertaking embedded or participatory forms of action research which are empathic and interactive rather than extractive and objective (see Pain, 2003). This contact, however, does not blind us to activism’s limitations; in fact some of the strongest critiques have emerged from within such movements.1

It shares many similarities with anarchism, meaning ‘without government’. Together they combine to make a powerful toolkit for social and environmental justice politics (see Bookchin, 1996; Cook and Pepper, 1990; Blunt and Wills, 2000; Kumar, 1987; Sheehan, 2003; Berkmann, 2003; Joll, 1979; Marshall, 1992). In this section, we examine autonomy in five main ways: as a concept comprising different tendencies and trajectories; as a temporal-spatial

strategy between and beyond the ‘global versus local’ axis; as a form of interstitial politics; as a process of resistance and creation; and as a coherent attempt at praxis with its strong sense of pre-figurative politics and commitment to the revolution of the everyday.

¹ Anderson (2004) rightly notes that a specific activist identity is enacted during environmental direct action, an identity which sets the activist-self apart from normal society through particular spatial practices, moral codes and politico-cultural preferences. Collective identity is normally strengthened through bonds of trust, loyalty and affection, as well as antipathy to non-members (Goodwin, Jasper and Polletta, 2001). While an ‘activist mentality’ sets activists apart as specialists in social change, the concept of ‘activist’ and their 'other' is far from simple as those involved in autonomous projects represent highly mobile, multilayered and contradictory identities. Hence, the large grey area between the ontological extremes of activist and public suggests that the position of ‘non-activist’ excludes and marginalises a large majority (Halfacree, 2004), many of whom would be sympathetic to autonomous projects’ practices and politics. These more hybrid, contingent notions of self are used here.

Autonomy is moveable, historically specific, highly contextual and contested and used to pursue a variety of ends and ideologies (Brown, 1992). It has been variably used within traditions of autonomous Marxism, social anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, regional separatism, national socialism, anarcho-primitivism, Zapatismo, ecologism and anti-capitalism. Such flexibility in usage and interpretation makes it a dangerously fuzzy concept. Autonomy can better understood by considering these tensions in depth, and making a claim for the validity and normative worth of certain tendencies over others.

The individual-collective dichotomy is a key tension. In the first case, autonomy can be seen as the free-floating disconnected individual with highly egoistic desires, tendencies enshrined in classic, eighteenth century liberalism and based upon nation-states’ sovereign rights and market interactions between rational, autonomous and self-interested individuals. Such individual autonomy is prominent in modern-day consumer societies, where autonomy is stripped down to consumer choice or the practices and discourses of highly individualised capitalist entrepreneurs whose aims are to reduce government legislations in order to make money (see Ruggie, 2004). Unrestrained capitalism, then, is itself a quest for autonomy. However in the second case, autonomy is a collective project, fulfilled only through reciprocal and mutually agreed relations with others. Ideas of collectivism and mutuality are key, emerging as strong currents in nineteenth century anarchist notions through thinkers such as Peter Kropotkin (1987) who sought to prove that the dominant tendency in human relations was co-operation not competition, and Pierre Joseph Proudhon and Michel Bakunin who envisaged autonomous individuals living freely and trading within a federation of communities (Marshall, 1992; Joll, 1979).

Some of the concrete differences in usages and contexts are worth expanding upon. First, the project of autonomy as self-rule is not simply the terrain of confrontational or utopian politics. Various causes have enlisted it to renew participation in market democracies, where it is also associated with devolution or subsidiarity where the individual or the local/regional level seeks greater power from the bureaucratic centre (Clark, 1984; Wolman and Goldsmith, 1990). More co-operative versions of capitalism -- Thrift’s ‘soft capitalism’ (1998) -- attempt to re-embed the market into community structures and make corporations more accountable to civil society. Hence, ideas of localism, self-management, the co-operative or solidarity/economy, sustainable communities, devolution and autonomy have found their way into mainstream government and community policy debates (in the UK see for example the Future Foundation Group, the New Economics Foundation, and DEMOS).

More worryingly, autonomy is often asserted in reinvigorating nationalisms (Rupert, 2003). Separatist, insurrectionary and fundamentalist groups may lay claim to autonomy as a means of gaining absolute control over territory, resources and populations, often using violence. Such groups include terrorist networks, Islamic fundamentalist groups such as Hamas or Western proto-revolutionary groups such as the Weather Underground, Symbionese Liberation Army, Bader Meinhoff in Germany and the Angry Brigade in the UK. The contemporary USA also sees a far-

Moreover, there are varying definitions of autonomy from within the varied alter-globalisation movement, including non governmental organizations (NGOs), direct action, peace and anti-fascist groups, Trotskyite parties and organisations such as Workers Power and Globalise Resistance, as well as by national-socialist governments such as Chavez’s Venezuela and universalist humanitarian movements such as the World Social Forum (Starr and Adams, 2003). While some of these groups and movements have a commitment to non-hierarchical organising, many remain embedded in organised party socialism or vertical institutional structures and hence have been criticised for their continuing use of hierarchical decision making, secrecy and closure (Sen et al., 2004).

This brings us to what we define as the core values of autonomous geographies which will inform this paper. Castoriadis’ (1991) conceptualization showed that the autonomy project’s individual and collective aspects are highly inter-related, when it is regarded as a project of the renewal of democracy. Individual autonomy implies individuals’ capacity to make choices in freedom, while collective autonomy implies a given society’s or group’s self-rule through the freedom of its institutions and equal participation in institutions. These inter-relations are vital. As de Souza (2000: 189) notes, ‘strong individual autonomy in a proper sense will be a fiction … in a society which is characterized by structural asymmetry in the distribution of power’. Castoriadis rightly understood that the individual would never be free within the confines of capitalism, authoritarian socialism or representative democracy. This project of simultaneous collective and individual autonomy as a tool for renewing democracy is defined through personal freedom, a mistrust of power and a rejection of hierarchy, and the advocacy of self-management, decentralised and voluntary organisation, direct action and radical change.

Several groups define these tendencies, many taking their cue from Italian autonomism and the autonomous Marxism tradition. Groups such as Autonomia Operaio (Workers Autonomy), Potere Operaio (Worker’s Power) and Lotta Continua (The Struggle Continues) extended the struggle from the factory to the wider city, focusing on community and working class struggles and helping to spark countless strikes, factory occupations, sabotages and squats (Lotinger and Marazzi, 1980; Wright, 2002). The movement of 1977 was the apogee of Italian autonomy, promoting experiments in class confrontation such as squatting, looting and pirate radio. The Situationist International -- along with a range of other groups involved in the May 1968 uprisings -- provide a key backdrop for today’s autonomous struggles. The Situationists demanded that an insurrectionary imagination be brought into everyday life, challenging the contradictions which shape society and replacing it with a sense of a possible immediate revolution (for example Vaneigem, 1979).

Today’s alter-globalisation activists continue this tradition, by combining attacks on corporate globalisation with proposals for everyday alternatives (for example Schalit, 2002; Duffuor and Bové, 2001; Cockburn and St Clair, 2000; Callinicos, 2003; Houtart and Polet, 2001; Kingsnorth, 2003). Many groups have taken on an explicit autonomy agenda to maintain a non-aligned and confrontational attitude and distance themselves from reformist elements in the anti-capitalist movement.

central within the housing co-operative and eco-village movement. Urban social centres have taken on issues of gentrification and privatization, while ecological direct activists and summit siege activists at Seattle, Genoa and Cancun have shown the validity and successes of civil disobedience. We can also point to the Wombles (White Overall Movement Building Libertarian Effective Struggles) in the UK and the Disobidienti in Italy, while groups like Earth First! highlight the need to confront industrial capitalism directly.

The most inspiring autonomy project versions come from struggles in the majority world, best captured by Argentina’s Piqueteros, and the Zapatistas in Chiapas state, Mexico. In the latter, autonomous municipalities and direct democracy have been established, along with an autonomous infrastructure of health, education and production. Zapatista self-rule is distinguished by a commitment to openness, full participation and desire for others to experiment, without making exclusive claims on the governance of the Mexican nation-state.

To specify our conceptualization then, we agree with Carmen’s (1996) suggestion that autonomy rests on four pillars: political ownership and control; cultural and media literacy; the self-determination of organizational forms; and economic self-reliance. Katsiaficas (1997) goes further by outlining several principles which have defined European autonomous movements: collectivism; independence from political parties, trade unions and capital circulation; popular power, self-determination and decentralised direct democracy; consensus-based decision-making (or horizontality); diversity and pluralism; the revolution of the everyday; internationalism; and conscious spontaneity, militancy and confrontation as tactics. This freedom with connection -- confrontation with proposition - is key, the core principle informing autonomous geographies.

To understand the quest for autonomy, there needs to be a more nuanced understanding of what activists are seeking to attain in relation to globalisation (especially corporate globalization). As well as a material reality, globalisation is a narrative, a mediated discourse constructed from multiple stories (Gibson-Graham, 1996), which is attractive due to its appearance as a plausible explanation and a clear image of the future, where globalisation is inexorable and the only option for action is to adapt and react to it. Thus the theories of globalisation are understood as ‘common sense’. Moreover, the ‘labour of representation’ (Bourdieu, 1991, p.243) “through constant repetition in daily practice, serve[s] to reinforce narratives of ‘normal’ globalization” (Cameron and Palan, 2004, p.85) at the everyday level. Mundane acts, such as “using credit cards, accessing the Internet, investing in stock markets, buying ‘global’ branded products, consuming global ‘lifestyles’ … ultimately produce the ‘reality’ of globalisation itself” (ibid, p.86).

However, there are always counter narratives (Escobar, 2001). By acknowledging the discursive construction of economic neoliberal globalisation, an instability appears that permits the construction of alternative narratives. By recognising that actions serve to constitute globalisation’s ‘reality’, we can begin to challenge globalisation through changing everyday practices. Autonomous geographies are part of the constitution of other realities, creating what Harvey terms ‘spaces of hope’ which can lead to creative futures:

As Castells (1983) argues, through such interventions we become 'auteurs' of our own geographies; these are Lefebvre's representational, or directly lived, spaces. The struggle to represent and promote these popular histories is nothing new. Hence, autonomy is a temporal strategy – a struggle against amnesia, of not forgetting the successes and failures of past struggles (Featherstone, 2005). Collecting, preserving and talking about collective memories of previous struggles across times and spaces is the lifeblood of autonomy, providing socio-spatial reference points for projecting autonomous visions into the present and future.

Many autonomous campaigns are grounded in particular places and (re)localisation is a strong thread of such struggles (Schumacher, 1972; Douthwaite, 1996; Hines, 2000; Mander and Goldsmith; 1996). For many groups, especially those in the global south, the harsh realities of neoliberal economies are strong justifications for a place-bounded, and often exclusionary, desire for self-rule and legislation (Escobar, 1995, Reynolds, 1989, Yunupingu, 1997). When the current phase of capitalist growth is predicated on dispossessing people, often by force, from control over previously unexploited resources (Harvey 2003), autonomy concerns reclaiming land and dignity for survival, identity, and history-making.

Participants in autonomous place politics are acutely aware of the local’s limitations as an arena for struggle. Whether in terms of a misplaced nostalgia for ‘nationalist’ capitalism or a ‘community’ (Bauman, 2002), being separated from the wider world can equate to being marginalised as outsiders, being viewed as disengaged, unrealistic or naïve, and as leaving capitalism unchanged and unchallenged. However, autonomous projects are never just of the here and now. Featherstone (2005) discusses how local militant particularisms are not simply locally-bounded and then networked globally, but from the start are a product of mobile trans-national, or extra-local, geographies of resistance and solidarity. To suggest that resistance is either local or global closes us to the creative interconnections that fuels resistance movements, being facilitated through numerous flows (speaker tours, visits and exchanges between activists, conferences, meetings and convergence gatherings, or information from the internet, zines and magazines). Gatherings and convergence spaces (Routledge, 2003) are used explicitly to allow individual and group networking to share and build ideas and tactics. Autonomous practices are not discrete localities, but networked and connected spaces, part of broader transnational network, where extra-local connections are vital social building blocks. Escobar (2001) terms such practices “multi-scale, network-orientated strategies of localization” (p.139) and the “supra-place effects of place-based politics” (p.142). Through autonomous action we can forge new identities, which can rebuild solidarities and teach about the multi-scalar workings of economic globalisation. For example, squatting a building leads to a greater awareness of national-global property speculation or how the state marshals footloose investment, while a local campaign against school closure can unravel global agreements on privatisation and tradable services. Locally-grounded autonomous projects allow an unpacking of the power working at different levels through governments, corporations and local elites, and the building of extra-local solidarity and resistance.

In this respect, an autonomous politics of place is not a mere privileging or protecting of the local as authors such as Escobar (2001) sometimes suggest. As Massey (2004a) comments, developing a nuanced 'geography of responsibility' requires a more complex, negotiated sense of place, moving away from a sense of a fixed globality (Dirlik, 2000) or locality, towards an appreciation of the countless times and spaces which are the building blocks of both. Overcoming the over-simplified global-bad, local-good dichotomy means appreciating that while some local places are vulnerable and worth protecting, others are powerful and inflict harm. Hence, some places, processes and flows need to be de-legitimised, countered and reduced, while others are re-legitimised and promoted. Following Massey (2004b), a politics of autonomous geographies does not concern linear progression towards some desired place-bound utopia or equilibrium, but an obligation to recognise co-existence, negotiations and conflict. Autonomous geographies are ‘entanglements and configurations of multiple trajectories, multiple histories’ (Massey, 2004b, 148).