Peoples Global Action

Definition

From the Wikipedia:

"Peoples' Global Action (PGA) is the name of a worldwide co-ordination of radical social movements, grassroots campaigns and direct actions in resistance to capitalism and for social and environmental justice. PGA is part of the anti-globalization movement." (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peoples_Global_Action)

Interview

Jeffrey Juris, in an interview by Geert Lovink:

"GL: One way of describing your book is to see it as a case study of Peoples’ Global Action. Would it be fair to see this networked platform as a 21st century expression of an anarcho-trotskyist avant-gardist organization? You seem to struggle with the fact that PGA is so influential, yet unknown. You write about the history of the World Social Forum and its regional variations, but PGA is really what concerns you. Can you explain to us something about your fascination with PGA? Is this what Ned Rossiter calls a networked organization? Do movements these days need such entities in the background?

JJ: I wouldn’t call my book a case study of People’s Global Action (PGA) in a strict sense, but you are right to point to my fascination with this particular network. In many ways I started out wanting to do an ethnographic study of PGA, but as I suggest in my introduction, its highly fluid, shifting dynamics made a conventional case study impossible. A case study requires a relatively fixed object of analysis. With respect to social movement networks this would imply stable nodes of participation, clear membership structures, organizational representation, etc., all of which are absent from PGA. However, this initial methodological conundrum presented two opportunities. On the one hand, it seemed to me that PGA was not unique, but reflected broader dynamics of transnational political activism in an era characterized by new digital technologies, emerging network forms, and the political visions that go along with such transformations. In this sense, PGA was on the cutting edge; it provided a unique opportunity to explore not only the dynamics, but also the strengths and weaknesses of new forms of networked organization among contemporary social movements.

At the same time, PGA also represented a kind of puzzle: I knew it had been at the center of the global days of action that people generally associate with the rise of the global justice movement, yet it was extremely hard to pin down. Participating individuals, collectives, and organizations seemed to come and go, and those who were most active in the process often resolutely denied that they were members or had any official role. Yet, the PGA network still had this kind of power of evocation, and, at least during the early years of my research (say 1999 to 2002), it continued to provide formal and informal spaces of interaction and convergence. In this sense, it seemed to me that figuring out the enigma of PGA could help us better understand the logic of contemporary networked movements more generally. On the other hand, the difficulty of carrying out a traditional ethnographic study of PGA meant I had to shift my focus from PGA as a stable network to the specific practices through which the PGA process is constituted. In other words, my initial methodological dilemma opened up my field of analysis to a whole set of networking practices and politics that were particularly visible within PGA, but could also be detected to varying degrees within more localized networks, such as the Movement for Global Resistance (MRG) in Barcelona, alternative transnational networks such as the World Social Forum (WSF) process, new forms of tactical and alternative media associated with the global justice movement, and within the organization of mass direct actions.

In other words, the focus of my book is really these broader networking practices and logics, although these were particularly visible within the PGA process. Methodologically, then, I situated myself within a specific movement node—MRG in Barcelona, and followed the network connections outward through various network formations, including but not restricted to PGA. However, it is also true that the ethnographic stories I present are largely told from the vantage point of activists associated with PGA. This is because MRG happened to be a co-convener of the PGA network during the time of my research, but also because PGA activists were particularly committed to what I refer to as a network ideal.

In my book I distinguish between two ideal organizational logics: a vertical command logic and a horizontal networking logic, both of which are present to varying degrees, and exist in dynamic tension with respect to one another, within any particular network. Whereas vertical command logics are perhaps more visible within the social forums, PGA reflects a particular commitment to new forms of open, collaborative, and directly democratic organization, thus coming closer to the horizontal networking logics I am most concerned with. In this sense, PGA is definitively NOT a 21st century avant-gardist organization and has been particularly hostile to traditional top-down Marxist/Trotskyist political models and visions. PGA does reflect something an anarchist ethic, although this has more to do with the confluence between networking logics and anarchist organizing principles than any kind of abstract commitment to anarchist politics per se.

Rather than a networked organization, which refers to the way traditional organizations increasingly take on the network form, PGA is closer to an “organized network” in Ned Rossiter’s terms, a new institutional form that is immanent to the logic of the new media (although in this case not restricted to the new media). The network structure of PGA thus provides a transnational space for communication and coordination among activists and collectives. For example, PGA’s hallmarks reflect a commitment to decentralized forms of organization, while the network has no members and no one can speak in its name. Rather than a traditional organization (however networked) with clear membership and vertical chains of command, PGA provides the kind of communicational infrastructure necessary for the rise of contemporary networked social movements. The challenge for PGA and similar networks, given their radical commitment to a horizontal networking logic, has always been sustainability. This is where the social forums, with their greater openness to vertical forms, have been more effective. In this sense, I find PGA much more exciting and politically innovative, but it may be the hybrid institutional forms represented by the social forums that have a more lasting impact." (http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/geert/inside-networked-movements-interview-with-jeffrey-juris/)