The utopian dimension of the WSF consists of the claim to the existence of alternatives to neoliberal globalization. This is the context in which the utopian dimension of the WSF must be understood. The utopian dimension of the WSF consists in affirming the possibility of a counter-hegemonic globalization.
The World Social Forum and the Sociology of Absences
The sociology of absence proceeds by confronting each of the above mentioned ways of producing absence. A central idea of the sociology of absence in this regard is that ignorance or knowledge generally does not exist. In short, the practice of a sociology of absence is hypothetical and takes place by confronting conventional scientific reason.
The World Social Forum and the Sociology of Emergences
The subjective element of the sociology of absences is cosmopolitan consciousness and nonconformism before the waste of experience. The subjective element of the sociology of emergence is anticipatory consciousness and nonconformism before a need whose fulfillment is within the horizon of possibilities. As in the case of the sociology of absences, the practices of the WSF also come more or less close to the ideal type of the sociology of emergence.
The World Social Forum as Political Emergence
I will then go on to analyze the problems and tensions that this news creates at three levels: representation; organization; political strategy and political action and the future of the WSF. The internationalism promoted by the WSF represents a marked departure from the old internationalism that dominated anti-capitalist politics throughout the twentieth century. On the contrary, the internationalism aimed at by the WSF celebrates social, cultural and political diversity within the broad boundaries set by the Charter of Principles.
Representation
Participation is self-financed and many of the movements and organizations do not have the financial capacity to support their participation in the WSF. It is understandable that the success given by the WSF would have contributed to raising the issue of representation of participation. I am sure that if the consolidation of the KSF continues, this issue will have to be adequately addressed.
Organization
17 Summaries of the discussion during these meetings of the IC can be accessed on the WSF website. In this section I address a specific question: the role of the PT in the organization of the three editions of the WSF. 28 The Charter of Principles was adopted by the WSF's International Council in 2001.
The New Organizational Challenges
The results are available and are very revealing when it comes to the performance of the WSF. Hence the justified criticism of sexual discrimination in the organization of the Forum by the women's movements. 5 - The logistical problems faced by the WSF hurt the attendance of the panels.
Perhaps the main strength of the WSF lies in the diversity that characterizes this type of activity. Two major organizational innovations of WSF 2003 were panels and polemical round tables. 1 – The composition of the sessions reflected the regional and gender imbalances already observed in other activities.
These data confirm the lack of globality of the WSF and the difficulty of including the bottom in the upside-down globalization. Literacy is perhaps one of the most disturbing data on characterizing the social base of the WSF. It comes as no surprise that only in the case of the non-Brazilian delegates organizations of.
6 - The social composition of the participants (their social characteristics, modes of involvement and opinions) will certainly vary depending on the location of the WSF. At the subsequent meetings of the IC (Peruggia, November 2003; Mumbai, January 2004; Passignano Sul Trasimeno, Italy, April 2004), most committees presented their reports. The eleven thematic spaces will be the privileged area for the expression of the diversity and plurality within the WSF.
Strategy and Political Action
This is why the scope of the struggle must be increasingly global, a fact from which the WSF derives its relevance. This split is much more alive among movements and organizations of the North than of the South. Horizontal organization based on consensus must be replaced (or at least articulated) by a democratic order capable of acting in the name of the WSF.
With the exception of the latter, the tensions and divisions mentioned above are not specific to the WSF. The specificity of the WSF lies in the fact that all these divisions coexist within the womb of the WSF, without disrupting its aggregating power. This call was made on top of the division over the nature of the WSF (space or movement).
In subsequent editions of the WSF, the focus on concrete proposals and the struggles around them remained central. The assessment of the WSF is one of the exercises that best unfolds the confrontation between the new and the old. From the point of view of the old, WSF cannot but be negatively evaluated.
To be minimally adequate, the evaluation of the WSF must be conducted in accordance with the epistemology of the WSF.
Self-democracy
By expanding the available and possible social experience, the WSF created a global awareness for the various movements and NGOs, regardless of the scale of their action. This awareness of globality was crucial in making credible among the movements and the NGOs themselves the trans-scale nature of the geopolitical entity in which they acted. Considering all the levels involved, the evaluation of the effectiveness of the WSF is undoubtedly more complex, but for the same reason it does not allow hasty judgments derived from positivist epistemology.
Despite the criticisms and shortcomings, the organizational structure of the first four editions of the WSF has, in my opinion, been the most appropriate. Undoubtedly, the criteria of representation and participation could have been better adapted to the diversity of movements and NGOs. But it should be noted that successive editions of the WSF have attempted to respond to the criticisms made.
Assuming that the WSF may be entering a new phase, the challenge is to change its organizational structure in accordance with the requirements of the new phase and while respecting the objective of deepening internal democracy, an objective on which there is the most consensus within the IC. The first consists of increasing the representativeness of the IC and transferring the core of the WSF from individual global events to a continuous process consisting of national, regional and thematic forums taking place around the world according to a planned schedule. By the current IC, certainly not representative of the entire WSF, let alone democratically elected by its members.
Make sure that the WSF as a whole and forums around the world do not make the mistake of trying to become international, a movement of movements or even just the voice of world movements.
The work of translation
Translation work presupposes what I refer to as negative universalism, the most common shared idea of the impossibility of cultural perfection. Another type of translation work is done between social practices and their agents. The relevance of translation work in relation to practices is the result of a double circumstance.
When such a postulate is guaranteed, the conditions and procedures for the translation work can be elucidated from the following question: What is to be translated. Managing and translating silence is one of the most demanding tasks in translation work. In the cosmopolitan contact zone, the possibility of a better world is imagined from today's vantage point.
The purpose of translation between knowledge is to create cognitive justice from the standpoint of the epistemological imagination. The kind of social transformation that can be achieved through translation work requires that mutual learning and the will to articulate and fuse be turned into transformative practices. The Charter will be drawn up by the NGOs/social movements that take responsibility for the establishment of the PUSM.
New problems cause ambivalence in the evaluation of the past and uncertainty about the future.
The question of efficaciousness. As I showed above, this is one of the most divisive questions since efficaciousness can be measured in terms of
Despite the success of the WSF – its organizational and programmatic novelty, global reach, consensus-building style – the question of its future is recurring. I think the reason lies in the fact that the factors responsible for its success have solved as many problems as they have created. The newness of the WSF is widely attributed to its absence of leaders and its hierarchical structure.
The questions of representation and organization. The newness of the WSF is consensually attributed to its absence of leaders and hierarchical
The question of how to combine the celebration of diversity with the construction of strong consensuses leading to collective action. The
These problems, in my view, reveal the current vitality of the WSF and there is no reason to believe that it will not respond successfully to the challenges it faces. Reinventing Left Politics: Toward a Socialist Politics for the Second Globalization”, Transnational Alternativas at http://www.tni.org./tat/, accessed March 19, 2003. Discurso en la Marcha de las Madres de los días Jueves - Jueves 7 de febrero del 2002, at http://lists.indymedia.org/mailman/public/www-it/2002-.
Paper presented at the Cyberspace Panel, Life after Capitalism Programme, 3rd World Social Forum, Porto Alegre, January. The World Social Forum fights imperialist globalization”, in Nisula, L.; Sehm-Patomäki, K. eds.), We, the Peoples of the World Social Forum. The Current State of Globalization” ALAI, América Latina and Movimiento of June 22, at http://alainet.org/active/show_text.php3?key=2372, accessed March 19, 2003.
Towards an Epistemology of Blindness: Why the New Forms of ‘Ceremonial Adequacy’ Neither Regulate nor Emancipate”, The European Journal of Social Theory. Porto Alegre - Hyderabad - Porto Alegre: Reflections on the past year of the World Social Forum process in India and internationally, at http://www.choike.org/cgi-bin/choike/links/page.cgi?p= ver_informe&id=967, accessed July 7, 2003. Twenty-two statements on the problems of democracy in the World Social Forum at http://www.forumsocialmundial.org.br/dinamic.asp?pagina=bib.
Feminism, Globalization and the Movement for Global Justice and Solidarity”, Transnational Alternatives en http://www.tni.org./tat/, consultado el 19 de marzo de 2003.
