How do we feel when we participate in a movement or group? What are our relationships to others in the group? Does it feel open? Caring? Social? Is there trust? Why do we come back to assemblies and actions? Are people open to one another?Ĭ&N: We have been told that “joyful militancy” or “militancia alegre” is a more common notion in Latin America. It is both a fairly large and abstract concept, and at the same time a very simple direct and emotive one. I do see joyful militancy as closely tied with emotion, on the individual and collective level, and will get to that with some of the later questions. The role of joy, in particular in the way you describe it, is often absent – though not entirely – from our conversations and constructions in the northern part of the Americas and Europe. It all resonates deeply with things I have been thinking, witnessing, fearing and dreaming.
Marina Sitrin (MS): I am so excited for this project. As time went on in the researching, interviewing and writing of the book our ideas and articulations shifted and for that, we are deeply indebted to all our interviewees who offered new insights and shed light on areas that needed reworking.Ĭarla & Nick (c&N): Based on what we’ve told you about the book project, can you tell us what resonates and what doesn’t? This interview was completed in early 2016 as part of the research for Joyful Militancy. We (carla and Nick) sent Marina Sitrin a ‘preamble’ outlining some of the ideas behind the book, and then included a couple questions based on Sitrin’s other writings (especially Horizontalidad - published in English as Horizontalism- and Everyday Revolutions). This is part of a series of about the project. Empire works to usher its subjects into flimsy relationships where nothing is at stake and to infuse intimacy with violence and domination.Joyful Militancy by carla bergman and Nick Montgomery foregrounds forms of life in the cracks of Empire, revealing the ways that fierceness, tenderness, curiosity, and commitment can be intertwined. But these insipid tendencies do not mean that friendships are pointless, only that friendship is a terrain of struggle. Under neoliberal friendship, we don't have each other's backs, and our livesĪren't tangled up together. This neoliberal friend is the alternative to hetero- and homonormative coupling: "just friends" implies a much weaker and insignificant bond than a lover could ever be.
The algorithms of Facebook and other social networks guide us towards the refinement of our profiles, reducing friendship to the click of a button. We become friends with those who are already like us, and we keep each other comfortable rather than becoming different and more capable together.
Under neoliberalism, friendship is a banal affair of private preferences: we hang out, we share hobbies, we make small talk. “Maybe the concept of friendship is already too colonized by liberalism and capitalism.
0 kommentar(er)
