Latent structure of a text

./english/31.txt:13:The ASM evening meetings wasted hours haggling over a text that in reality will have very little or no impact at all. Why? Because our joint actions are so small and insignificant that they will have virtually no impact. Instead of deciding what kind of campaigns the left across Europe should organise, the ASM evening meetings fished around for events that are being organised anyway in one European country or another. We then simply put the ASM stamp on it.

./english/40.txt:17:The flow of new ideas coming from the ESF is something even Le Monde remarked upon in its leader on ‘Europe Day’ – a few days after the Athens forum. It pointed to the ESF as a source of alternatives at a time when the European elites are at an impasse. I found a widespread insistence on the importance of deepening our analysis. ‘It’s not enough just to be against Bolkestein [the EU directive introducing market forces to essential services]. We need specific analyses of how neoliberalism is being carried through in different countries, the impact of enlargement and what can be learnt from the UK,’ commented Kenny Bell, deputy convenor of the northern region of Unison. To this end a network of public service trade unions is organising not just action but a Europe-wide seminar in October.

./english/147.txt:103:A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organizations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker

./english/161.txt:91:begin evaluating the meaning or the impact of the mobilisation in light of the

./english/161.txt:180:opening day. Second, as an example of low-impact, ecologically sustainable living.

./english/176.txt:38:Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 2(1) 76which they interpret social reality), structural-connection (connecting potential activists with an opportunity to participate) and decision-shaping functions (helping individuals to assess the costs and benefits of their potential participation through contact with the actions of other participants) (Passy 2003, 24-25). Given its emphasis on relations, ties and interactions, one would expect that communication and media would be a central element of the networks approach to social movements. This is however not the case. For instance, while social networks are considered as key predictors of movement participation, little attention has been paid to the communicative aspects of an individual’s direct or indirect ties to a movement and to the communication media through which these relationships are constituted. In other words, the fact of whether participants in a movement communicate mainly over the telephone or over the internet may have an impact on the capacity of their social networks to act as agents of mobilization. In addition, the transmission of ideas and cognitive schemata taking place through networks also implies a process of communication whose characteristics and mechanisms remain under-researched. Yet, there are a few studies which ‘have focused on the flows of communication and the links between different territorial areas’ (Diani 2004, 351), showing that the levels of collective action in one place affect collective action in nearby geographical areas. However, these studies examined uprisings of the late 19th century which took place in a completely different communicative and media context, and as such cannot account for the role of current communication media in the diffusion of protest. Thus, the role of communication media, means and techniques remains an under-researched subject within social movement study. Even though all of the aforementioned strands of social movement theory recognize the crucial role of communication and interaction in processes of mobilization and participation, they have nonetheless failed to incorporate these considerations into their theoretical framework or research design. When the role of the media is taken into account, the focus rests on the mass media, disregarding the functions of more personal communication. This perpetuates a seemingly unintentional but nonetheless false perception of mediated communication as indirect or impersonal as opposed to ‘direct’ face-to-face communication. This preoccupation with the mass media tends to focus attention on the ‘external’ communication of a movement and not on its internal modes of communication and their impact on the movement’s identity, structure and ideology. It also maintains a perception of social movements as entities with specific and given characteristics and ways of communicating. This deprives us of Kavada, Exploring the role of the internet… 77all the valuable observations that a

./english/176.txt:42: The ‘movement for alternative globalization’ or ‘global social justice movement’ is an exception to this rule. This is because its characteristics are thought to be so inextricably linked with the use of new communication technologies that any study of the movement had to include from very early on a reflection on the role and impact of the internet. In the analysis that follows, I will briefly outline these claims and engage in a wider discussion about the possible effects of the internet in social movement activity. This analysis will provide the basis upon which the survey results will be assessed and interpreted. The ‘movement for alternative globalization’1 burst into the public consciousness in Seattle in late 1999 and since then has been the centre of much attention and controversy. Drawing on the broad and flexible frame of ‘alternative globalization’, this movement has managed to unite diverse and often disparate groups and organizations, from leftist political parties and charity organizations to anarchist groups of the Black Bloc. These groups seem to operate as a ‘network of networks’ constituting a prime example of ‘leaderless resistance’, as they manage to co-ordinate protests and events without a specific leader, a common programme or a centre of command (Castells 2001, 142). With its seemingly loose and flexible structure, global scale, and multi-issue politics, the ‘alter-globalization’ movement seems to represent a new type of social movements which is as much a product of the globalized world of late modernity as the problems that it tries to address.

./english/176.txt:127: This prevalence of more personal modes of communication is hardly surprising. Studies in mobilization and movement participation have repeatedly demonstrated that interpersonal networks and direct or indirect ties to a social movement increase the possibility of an individual’s participation. It is thus rather astonishing that social movements’ studies have hitherto failed to take into account the effects and uses of interpersonal communication, opting to focus instead on the impact of the mass media.

./english/192.txt:39:3. These disagreements spilled over into several attempts at disruption. Overall these incidents had very little impact on the ESF. The vast bulk of events went on completely unaffected by them, and most participants in the Forum and the final demonstration and concert didn't see them. But both because they received some attention in the media and on the net, and because this is the first time that an ESF has been successfully disrupted (an attempt to attack a Socialist Party representative in Paris was foiled by security guards), these attacks are worth discussing.

./english/199.txt:31:Moreover, the 2002 action had a concrete impact. At the International Commission meeting that spring in Barcelona , we learned there were no plans for a VIP room the following year. On our side, many of us in the Movement for Global Resistance in Barcelona realized we could have a positive effect by creatively engaging the forum from the outside. Thus began our part in a series of discussions at the Strasbourg Border Camp, Leiden PGA conference, and elsewhere around creating an autonomous space in Florence with "one foot in, and one foot out." Several different spaces ultimately emerged, including the Hub and projects organized by the Disobedientes and Cobas. Although the Hub in particular was perhaps more outside than inside, and was also widely criticized for its marginality, the autonomous space concept had caught on, and would be reproduced in different guises and to varying degrees at subsequent forums in Porto Alegre , Paris , and Mumbai. The autonomous space model has perhaps come to its fullest fruition this year in London .

./english/203.txt:9:At the first ESF in Florence two years ago, the unprecedented support of the Italian leftist trade union federation Cgil and, more widely, of the European confederation of trade unions (ETUC) gave the movement a decisive impact on public opinion. It strengthened the protests against the imminent attack on Iraq and contributed much to the debate on the alternatives to neo-liberalism and imperialism. In London , three of the main British labour organisations (Unison, GMB, RMT) played the same fundamental role in managing and sponsoring the event. But the ESF came just a few days after New Labour's party conference, where the unions ended up backing Tony Blair's party and general policy, even if officially opposing his alliance with the US and the occupation of Iraq .

./english/205.txt:46:The Laboratory of Insurrectionary Imagination in particular explored interesting tactics and approaches to direct actions. For example, the attempt (frustrated by the police) to organize a free public transport party in the underground – where Yomango were ‘responsible' for the foods and drinks, while Planka brought their experience in coordinating the struggle of migrants and unemployed workers in resisting the privatisation of public transport in Sweden. The emphasis here was not on the spectacular media impact, but on the direct contact with the users of one of the world's most expensive public transport systems. Another interesting idea is the Clandestine Insurgent Rebel Clown Army, whose workshop at Beyond the ESF was packed: tactically versatile, it can be an alternative for large demos (where it has the merit of escaping the dichotomies that lead to escalation), small direct actions and popular theatre and education. Popular education is, in fact, one of the staples of the preparation for the G8 2005 meeting in Scotland carried out by the Dissent network by means of their roadshow.

./english/205.txt:70:Format-wise, this edition shows the possibility of transcending the obvious limits that Fora – so far built around plenaries with the ‘big names', normally resulting in generic analyses and platitudes with no visible impact, or the two-hour seminars and workshops in which any true convergence or common action are unlikely results – so far have shown. Let's take, for instance, the experience of Life Despite Capitalism, in its many interlocked sessions that lasted for a day and a half, or the whole programme (not explicitly organized as such, but effective none the same) around the issue of the precariat, in which there was a sense of build up leading to the Assembly of the Europrecariat. To this day the organizers have asked themselves the questions of how to make Fora less diagnostic and more constructive, without challenging the basic assumptions of the format. The plenaries, for instance, are living dead left-overs from the first WSF in Brazil, which was clearly planned as a one-off talkshop rather than a political ‘process'. The London experience points to yet new ways, although these have always been explored in the ‘periphery' of the Social Forum process (in the Youth Camp in Porto Alegre, in the Argentinean Social Forum etc.), without receiving the proper attention of its key players.

./english/209.txt:27:Fortunately, the desire in Britain for the kind of open space and opportunity for transnational convergence which the ESF provides is strong enough to transcend any particular management method or political sectarianism. For example at a local level, in cities like Newcastle, Sheffield and Liverpool or small towns like Swindon , Bolton or Edgehill , activists from the new ‘alter- globalisation ' movements and the left of the trade unions have begun to work together, with peace movement activists and socialist feminists often acting as important cross-generational bridges. Meetings in these cities to mobilise for London are already gathering momentum, though in many ways this process of deepening involvement beyond London has begun too late for maximum impact.

./english/236.txt:23:The Forum promoted as a learning or pedagogical space would expand the current focus on national and international links among movements and organisations in society and on connections and dialogue focusing on similarities. In outreach strategies to activist groups this view has the potential to help demystify the divide between theory (thinking) and practice (doing) and support the emergence of a culture of dialogue across differences. It could also justify the creation of outreach approaches for non-activists – as an invitation to a process of collective reflection and construction of an alternative world, increasing and expanding the Forum's political impact. We also claim that fostering the culture of self-reflexivity that is already emerging within the Forum could generate systematic considerations of the Forum's own contradictions, which could encourage Forum participants to re-negotiate their subject positions, bring in new actors and create new possibilities for the future of the space, reinforcing its potential as a catalyst of change in society.

./english/237.txt:19:The ESF organisers, almost entirely from political parties, claim that “the process was entirely inclusive with every shade of opinion and viewpoint within the global social justice movement.” Whilst the cumulative impact of the ESF was substantial, the collective efforts to shape the ESF came in the pre-packaged polemics of the traditional left parties with recruitment drives and little sense of the linkages or relevancy to autonomy and the grassroots. The mistrust of the non-standardised, non-card carrying organisations and the installation of rank and file power hierarchies meant the effective rejection of self-organised, self-managed and autonomous intervention. Without the relevant credentials and party/union card mandating us to participate, we were sans papiers in a new terrain of (in)vested power.

./english/247.txt:17:Besides the debate about the environmental situation and the search for alternatives that minimized the human impact, the Work Group helped to make approaches for the occupation of the spaces in the Harmonia Park and on the border of Guaiba.

./english/247.txt:35:In the 2005 Organizing Committee of the Youth Camp there is now an Environmental Commission which has, as one of its main objectives, to plan the IYC occupation with the smallest possible impact and to make a better use of the work and financial resources invested by trying to return these investments to the community, the city, the Park and the social movements.

./english/247.txt:37:An Evaluation of Environmental Impact of the Camp was done, analyzing aspects of the Park environment as well as a critical analysis of the Farroupilha Camp (a traditional Camping Event that happens in the same space as the IYC). In this Evaluation the possible impacts generated by the Camp were described and compensatory measures were planned.

./english/248.txt:25:This is, in part, because there are several things that conventional financial statistics are not very good at counting, such as environmental impacts or the value of voluntary labour. Yet these costs were certainly apparent at the ESF in London : there was not even a trace of recycling facilities, let alone the aspiration to reach Zero Waste (this is perhaps unsurprising, given that Ken Livingstone's London Plan also rejected this goal).

./english/266.txt:178:This guide was organized by Anna Couey of the DataCenter/ImpactResearch.

./english/284.txt:18:Through this paper –as an open assignment- I have been driven by a desire to understand the development of the discipline in terms of its relationship with its “objects”. In that sense, this essay explores briefly the shifts in the practices of representation within the discipline. On another level, the readings and the discussions in class have had an inspirational impact, making me think about the anthropology that I want to take part in. In relation to this more reflexive part, I would like to suggest that the developing relationship of Anthropology with social movements opens possibilities of a new politics of representation.

./english/284.txt:40:Foucault and Deleuze call for the end of theory as a signifier, theory is reclaimed as action and not as representation: “A theory is like a box of tools (…) there is no more representation; there is nothing but action” (in Spivak1988: 70). Behind these attractive manifesto-like statements, “a post-representationalist vocabulary hides an essentialist agenda” (1989:80) that portrays subalterns as monolithic collectivities. Spivak argues that these “first-world radical intellectuals” are separating the two constitutive meanings of representation. By focusing on the political meaning, they are attacking the “speaking for” in a superficial way since they are forgetting the economic meaning. Without developing her analysis further, I just want to present Spivak as a reference point in bringing political economy into the debate of representation. The micropolitics are not separated from the macropolitics, so “theories of ideologies” based on interests are necessary to complement notions of power based on desire (1989: 74). The international division of labor has to be acknowledged, recognizing its impact in the current epistemological world order. In this sense, Spivak is performing an uneasy –yet relevant and exciting- marriage between Marxism and Deconstruction.

./english/284.txt:59:After a year of engaging some of the most referential texts on socio-cultural theory, one can appreciate the multiple instances when the discipline of Anthropology has stopped to rethink itself. Two of the strongest moments that are important to recall are the internal criticism over the impact of the colonial encounter’s heritage in the “practicality” of the discipline (Asad, 1973), and the intense calls to be aware of the situatedness of the knowledge industry-especially the practice of representation instantiated by Anthropology, and its political and quotidian consequences (Said, 1989). Those challenges have been addressed and considered seriously by many, producing a discipline marked by its high degree of reflexivity. The mechanisms of self-criticism, internal debate, healthy distance from the discipline, awareness of author’s positionality, experimental methods and literary devices, all contribute to construct a self-conscious discipline alerted to the interstices of power and knowledge. Anthropology then appears as an academic field where new ways of thinking and doing can be accommodated. This history of reflexivity questions the stipulated objectivism of academic thinking, attempting to create a ‘situated discipline’ that stimulates the rethinking of its own research practices.

./english/284.txt:71:Spivak’s call for a deep engagement with the subaltern leads to a strong epistemological shift. She insists on the persistence of the “epistemic violence” product of the colonial process where Europe is erected as the undetermined Subject holding the explanatory power, and the colonized are relegated to be the Others –the Objects waiting to be explained- whose voice and agency have been stolen. Through recognizing the international division of labor and power, one is able to perceive its impact on the current ‘epistemological world order’. She is offering an epistemology that takes the subaltern into account not only as a case study, but as a source of knowledge and ‘expert’ production-the subaltern must be heard. Among global resistance movements in North America and Europe there is a lot of internal discussion about this topic. Mainly due to the mass media, the ‘spearheading role of southern social movements has been obscured, portraying the ‘anti-globalization movement’ as a negligible affair of ‘white-US and European-middle class kids’. However, in much movement discourse there exists an explicit attempt to recognize the role of grassroots communities from ‘poor’ countries as referential examples of movement building –from the Zapatistas in Chiapas, to the unemployed/piqueteros in Argentina, to peasant women in India- showing a similar effort to revert the canons of expertise. In this process, civil society from Europe and the US become the ‘students’ of their southern ‘teachers’ challenging colonial patterns.

./english/284.txt:89:Gupta and Ferguson call for a reflexivity focused on the politics of space. They offer a self-criticism of a discipline that relies heavily on spatial thinking and practices but has lacked the recognition of the impacts made by that spatiality. Simply said, the main proposal by this reflexive piece is that space matters for representation, and especially in a globalized world. How does it matter? Politics of otherness are intimately linked to politics of space. The anthropological enterprise –historically and recently- has operated under the premise of discontinuous spaces, drawing an equivalence of belonging among a particular culture and a particular place. This spatial conception has implications for ‘the other’ and for ‘the ethnographer’. The exotic is “located elsewhere” and the anthropologist is situated in “our society”.

./english/300.txt:69:Responses to these dynamics and the discussions within geography have already begun to emerge. One notable effort is the People’s Geography project organized out of Buffalo and its effort at making research and geographical concepts relevant to social struggles (see www.peoplesgeography.org). Other initial responses come from critical development work. This work is marked by efforts to construct venues for community or organizational input on development and planning work being done by geographers. One example of this is Howitt’s work in Australia on participatory social impact assessment by aboriginal communities as an empowerment tool vis-à-vis the mining and other resource extraction industries. He specifically sees his work as responding to the ‘applied people’s geography’ called for by Harvey in 1984 (Howitt 1993). More recently, the International Association for Participatory Development has promoted or collected many studies on issues dealing with community empowerment and spatial thinking in development. Some of the issues deal with participatory GIS and participatory 3-D modeling (www.iapad.org). Even more surprising was a collaborative study between two anthropologists and a Hawai`in indigenous sovereignty group on the possible uses of GIS for indigenous self-determination and even the creation of a specifically Hawai`in GIS (Cogswell and Schiotz 1996).

./english/316.txt:55:The rise and rise of the ‘anti-globalisation movement’ (the most common name), did not so much re-assert ‘interest’ over ‘identity’ as surpass the alleged opposition - or even the distinction. Highlighting the increasing power of corporations over states, and of their negative impact on people and peoples – North, South, East – the movement was as much a challenge to institutionalised labour and the left worldwide as to an international women’s movement suffering severe ‘ngo-isation’ (Alvarez et. al. 2002).

./english/316.txt:106:Marx and Engels were excited by the communicational impact of national railways and of the telegraph as it became trans-European. In power, Lenin declared that ‘Cinema for us is the most important of arts’: silent film could communicate across the literacy and language barriers. 20th century Communist internationalism was sensitive to the area of communications and culture, one of its most creative spirits declaring, notably, that ‘communications are the nervous system of ...internationalism and human solidarity’ (Mariátegui 1973/1923). In the 1920s, the Moscow-based Third International sponsored a multitude of often-innovatory cultural and communicational forms, both popular and avantgarde, from Germany to India and Japan. (Billington 1980, Mattelart and Siegelbaum 1983)

./english/323.txt:52:land.” Very little of the “high brow theory studied had any impact on the lives of real

./english/325.txt:20:The Dutch squatters movement was a big movement between 1976 and 1984. Squatters were large in numbers and well organized into neighbourhood groups; they had political impact and staged spectacular riots and because of that, gained a lot of media attention. The squatters’ movement disappeared as a media event after 1984 (after the eviction of their biggest building Weyers), but the (legalized) squats and networks survived and turned out to be fertile soil for other initiatives and experimental ways of life (ibid: 95). Out of the squatters’ movement sprang ‘the’ movement: a network of squats, communally owned houses, food co-ops, Local Exchange Trading Systems (LETS: doing ‘work’ for each other without money), music bands, festivals, action groups, research groups, mobile kitchens, groups helping refugees etc. Within this movement, a few thousand people are nowadays on the move in Holland. Some of them out of political motives, others because they want to live their life the way they want to. They want to express and realize their desires outside of the main ideology of the market and the state, their own ways of life and living together (ibid).

./english/331.txt:46:Three broad perspectives have predominated. On the 'right' the main features of the argument tend to be economic and political. On the 'left' the arguments concentrate on the social and environmental impact of the prevailing economic climate. A third perspective loosely aligned with 'third way' politics integrates aspects of both. I will identify how the debate is currently evolving beyond these perspectives in the search for practical solutions.

./english/331.txt:65:The other moral issue ignored or dismissed by neo-liberals is the environmental impact of all this growth: Sally (2002) points to the threat of "burdensome regulations (especially on environmental standards)", but draws a line under the issue at that point. Diane Coyle (2003) is more explicit:

./english/331.txt:224:Specifically, for example, pupils will learn about globalisation in a general sense at key stage 3 and already be familiar with key concepts by year 11. Abstract concepts such as human rights will have been revisited in different ways and through different topics at a more concrete level. This is bound to have an impact on attainment. Although this cohort will have had some opportunities to develop critical thinking skills in other subjects; their experience in dealing with abstract ethical principles, and their knowledge of the social and political world around them is extremely limited. This has implications for:

./english/337.txt:43:Moreover, the Forum has a very limited impact on « mainstream public opinion », which doesn’t see this space as an « alternative policy-producing » process. This function – a space to build common alternatives– is, as we all know, the more theoretical part of our process. Some of our remarks here before could help to enrich the process. But this issue has to be thoroughly addressed.

./english/347.txt:24:Whilst there has been a real increase in struggles over the past year or so, the ESF and the EPA have failed to either fully reflect this or have an impact back upon these struggles. It is not a question whether or not political parties are welcome as such, but what they stand for – for resistance to the attacks on workers and the oppressed or for carrying out neoliberal austerity measures and imperialist interventions. How can we ignore the fact that parties like RC in Italy are now actively pursuing the latter course? Nor can we ignore the fact that parties like PCF in France or the PDS –Left Party in Germany are heading in this direction. To be silent on these issues is the biggest “lack of transparency imaginable. The problem of the ESF therefore is not that it is “too radical” as Attac had claimed, but because it was and is not “radical, anti-imperialist, anti-capitalist” enough.

./english/359.txt:44:It wasn't that the people sitting around the table in Florence weren't an impressive group. They were worldly and wise and a good number of them came from movements and constituencies of great importance around the world. And it wasn't that the people at the table didn't want a more democratic and participatory approach. This desire was raised repeatedly. It was just that after a short time at that meeting it became obvious that despite the members' stature and desires, the people on the council were not the real locus of WSF power. The powers that be had some functionaries present, chairing the meeting…and it was clear that the powers that be had decided what the agenda was, what would be made known regarding the overall WSF situation to the people in the room, and what the international council could be permitted to discuss—but that those present had only very limited impact.

./english/360.txt:44:It wasn't that the people sitting around the table in Florence weren't an impressive group. They were worldly and wise and a good number of them came from movements and constituencies of great importance around the world. And it wasn't that the people at the table didn't want a more democratic and participatory approach. This desire was raised repeatedly. It was just that after a short time at that meeting it became obvious that despite the members' stature and desires, the people on the council were not the real locus of WSF power. The powers that be had some functionaries present, chairing the meeting�and it was clear that the powers that be had decided what the agenda was, what would be made known regarding the overall WSF situation to the people in the room, and what the international council could be permitted to discuss�but that those present had only very limited impact.

./english/365.txt:22:It is easy to see how conceptual confusion surrounds the political impact of the Internet and other digital media. When political networks are viewed at the level of constituent organizations, the implications of Internet communications can vary widely. Political organizations that are older, larger, resource-rich, and strategically linked to party and government politics may rely on Internet-based communications mostly to amplify and reduce the costs of pre-existing communication routines. On the other hand, newer, resource-poor organizations that tend to reject conventional politics may be defined in important ways by their Internet presence (Graber, Bimber, Bennett, Davis & Norris, forthcoming). In this analysis, I contend that the importance of the Internet in networks of global protest includes --but also goes well beyond – gains that can be documented for particular resource-poor organizations. For example, effects at the network level include the formation of large and flexible coalitions exhibiting the “strength of thin ties” that make those networks more adaptive and resistant to attack than

./english/365.txt:132:Davis, R. (1999) The Web of Politics: The Internet's Impact on the American Political System, New York: Oxford University Press.

./english/368.txt:98:In the summer of that same year, Cathryn Thorup, then Director of Studies and Programs at the Center for U.S. Mexican Studies at the University of California, San Diego, published an assessment of "cross-border coalitions" in the Columbia Journal of World Business.(38) Her primary focus was on the actions and impact of the anti-NAFTA network. She traced the development of opposition to and lobbying against the governments' "fast-track" approach to railroading NAFTA through Congress as well as elite efforts to divide and conquer that opposition. While calling the debate "healthy for both societies" (the U.S. and Mexico), she also highlighted the "tremendous vulnerability" of the state to such organizing and discussed how state policy makers might seek to convert such opposition into "valuable political allies" by consulting with them and cutting deals. Her vision of how the political system might cope with the emergence of these new rogue networks would seem to lie squarely in the tradition of pluralism, i.e., integrate and co-opt the new forces into a slightly modified fabric of governance.

./english/369.txt:101:A particularly pernicious development is the recent decision to relaunch the nuclear industry. We from our side must reply by relaunching a full-fledged campaign for the (military and civilian) denuclearisation of Europe. This is just one of the (major) elements of the deterioration of the biosphere, which is being subjected more and more to the dictates of the market. We are in favour of a radical reduction of its global ecological impact (climate change, depletion of natural resources, pollution of the planet, destruction of the biosphere), whose central axis could be the general principle of precaution. The EU's policies, pseudo-progressive by comparison with the US's totally irresponsible policies in this area, are in no way an adequate response to the dangers now threatening the planet.

./english/370.txt:11:The world of interface design is today undergoing dramatic changes which in their impact promise to rival those brought about by the use of the point-and-click graphical interfaces popularized by the Macintosh in the early 1980's. The new concepts and metaphors which are aiming to replace the familiar desk-top metaphor all revolve around the notion of semi-autonomous, semi-intelligent software agents. To be sure, different researchers and commercial companies have divergent conceptions of what these agents should be capable of, and how they should interact with computer users. But whether one aims to give these software creatures the ability to learn about the users habits, as in the non-commercial research performed at MIT autonomous agents group, or to endow them with the ability to perform transactions in the users name, as in the commercial products pioneered by General Magic, the basic thrust seems to be in the direction of giving software programs more autonomy in their decision-making capabilities.

./english/377.txt:12:It could be said that the themes and the formations as well as the presentations at the panels and workshops were not providing anything that could be called new knowledge. The agonising over this overgeneralised programme called globalisation has not only been on for some time, but its impact, experience, hearings, theatre and ‘naras’ are now almost a catechism. The groups and expressions on the criminality of war, on the ugly state and the uglier politicians that run it, and the voices on the TV and other media who are ‘quoted’ on this package, are also a known scenario. As an experience for those who have been witness to these journeys and forums for some time it was nothing especially new.

./english/383.txt:181:under the impact of the financial crises of 1997-1999, especially in Asia and Latin America. The

./english/386.txt:8:Tyranny of Economic Globalism Emerging Trends and Impact

./english/386.txt:121:Various mass organisations in the country in recent past have risen against globalisation in whatever manner they could. These movements have made certain impact by offering resistance to invasion of Global Capitalism by highlighting and struggling on issues affect the everyday life of the people.

./english/395.txt:393:student-organised workshop on the impact of globalisation on domestic law, one of the coorganisers

./english/396.txt:240:· Additionally, with the Regional NGO Articulación, FIRE created a special daily newscast. Under the name “Line of Impact” the special segment of the FIRE-PLACE, also feature in “Está Legal” in local radio in Costa Rica, women activists participating in the official debates came on the air every morning to share with the listeners the hottest news about the UN proceedings.

./english/396.txt:297:"What I found, as a woman and a human rights activist, is that there was no focus on the way in which racism and racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerances impacted on women," said Lesley. "As a black woman who grew up under apartheid, I thought it was necessary to look at the intersections of gender, racism, racial discrimination, etc., within the South Africa context."

./english/396.txt:581:Impact of FIRE’s Internet Radio:

./english/396.txt:591:A. Direct Impact Through Live Broadcasts and Multimedia Web Pages

./english/396.txt:596:Letters received from a variety of listeners, activists, and other media producers provide evidence of the direct impact of these Internet broadcasts and web features, both on participants in these programs and on listeners:

./english/396.txt:610:(From the USA): I traveled more than 1,400 miles to attend the Feminist Expo 2000 in Baltimore, Maryland, not knowing what to expect. I knew little to nothing about the many women’s organizations that have empowered women and impacted their lives…because I was unaware of the women’s movement, I never actively did anything to help its progress and never would call myself a feminist…At the Feminist Expo, I was able to participate in a FIRE broadcast, which gave me the feeling that I was actually doing something to help dispel the false labels attached to the word feminist. Even if only one person learned something from that broadcast, or took a thought or an idea from it, the broadcast was successful. FIRE inspired me to examine what else I can do to educate people about feminism…From Melanie Schneider, Senior Journalism student, Eastern Illinois University, Charleston, Illinois.

./english/398.txt:10:'The alternative is not civil society but civil disobedience' said Naomi Klein, activist and author of the acclaimed 'No Logo', who in a hard-hitting articulate speech warned about attempts being made to turn the WSF into 'yet another big meeting' bereft of any impact on the real world. Dismissing critical arguments that the anti-globalization movement did not have any specific goals she said 'there are so many alternatives evident at the WSF that they are spilling onto the streets'.

./english/400.txt:89:For ICEM the cybercampaigns have primarily been 'hearts and minds' operations (primarily addressing structural rather processing informational aspects, in Arqilla & Ronfeldt's terms) seeking to use the web to raise the profile of the various disputes both directly and indirectly. They have gone beyond simply disseminating information, to provide mechanisms for supporters to register support for the campaign. The opportunities to send protest messages were not, however, intended primarily to disrupt adversaries' information systems - rather they aimed to give a way for passive readers of the pages to become more active participants in the campaigns. An internal secretariat report emphasised this as follows: "The interactive nature of the technology lends itself perfectly to changing readers into concerned observers and then into active participants". However, the cybercampaigns do appear to have had an impact on the availability of adversary's service in at least two cases. In the first case (Campaign A), despite claiming that they had received relatively few protest messages, the company were reported as having established a parallel email system as a contingency (Arsenault, 1996). In Campaign D, internal mailing lists, the addresses of which had been known to ICEM were either removed, or had access controlled, shortly after their publication on the campaign Web sites.

./english/400.txt:125:Danitz, T. & Strobel, W. (1999) The Internet’s Impact on Activism: The Case of Burma, Studies in Conflict in Terrorism 22(3) pp. 257-279

./english/400.txt:153:Marshall, J. (1997) Globalization from Below: The Trade Union Connections in Walters, S. (Ed) Globalization, Adult Education and Training: Impacts and Issues, Zed Books, London pp. 56-67

./english/401.txt:132:MeS recognizes, however, that the other regional agreements within the Western hemisphere (and within which unions have been attempting to carve out a space and make an impact), such as the North American Free Trade Area, not only differ in form and coverage, but can lead to accords which conflict with each other. It is this that leads him to conclude that:

./english/401.txt:140: Oliveira argues that whilst, in the period of 'peripheral Fordism' (1950s-80s), there was a certain interest and support from Europe, sometimes from oriented-oriented NGOs, the European unions organizing Fiat, Volvo and Volkswagen workers made little if any impact on these companies in their home countries:

./english/401.txt:144: Oliveira notes the beginning of a new direction (a fourth period?), in which diverse phenomena are appearing. The first is that of the internationalism of workers within the same company, under the impact of privatization and foreign takeovers (e.g. Spanish-Brazilian bankworker internationalism). The second is the increasing relationship of North American and other unionism with the anti-globalization movement. Oliveira proposes that these latter movements have to be understood rather in terms of 'citizenship and survival' than in terms of the common material interests of industrial workers. Whilst the latter kind of internationalism can be found in the development of Mercosur unionism, such efforts 'are weak in terms of counter-hegemonic projects'.

./english/401.txt:245: These absences/silences are, to my mind, obstacles to a rethinking of labor internationalism in the era of a globalized, networked, services and financial capitalism (GNC). But they are also, it must be recognized, reflective or expressive of not only most contemporary labor studies but of the inter/national union movement itself, as 1) shaped by a century of National Industrial Colonial Capitalism (NICC) , and 2) impacted and effectively sidelined by a revolution within capitalism for which traditional union forms, practices and theories did not prepare it. Emancipation and internationalism, moreover, are not add-ons that can be bolted on to the national-industrial tractor to carry out tasks for which it was not originally designed. And even if they can be considered as part of the original toolbox of labor – as they indeed are or were – they cannot simply be drawn out of storage, or the museum, since the capitalism to which they were originally addressed was a largely pre- or early-industrial one. The full nature and trajectory of contemporary capitalism could not be predicted (despite brilliant insights by the early Marxists), and is only becoming evident as it unfolds itself and is subject to fresh analysis.

./english/402.txt:46:Something of an exception to the general Forum rule was, in 2002, the campaign against fundamentalisms of the Articulación Feminista Marcosur. I had and have doubts about both the subject of and the interpretation offered by this campaign, but it was one which intimately combined the customary Forum modes with dramatic cultural expression of undeniable originality and impact: last year there were masks, an enormous hot-air balloon, hoarding-sized posters and more. This year activity was concentrated in a big and packed-out book launch, at which was also projected a 10-minute CD production of considerable originality and power (Lucy Garrido, the Uruguayan designer, opted for visuals, music and minimal words, in successive English and Spanish). We could have had, we should have had, a discussion around this. Even a panel…

./english/402.txt:52:For the rest, I am inspired by: energetic and innovative social protest, and original analyses of the local-national-global dialectic in Argentina; by the belated appearance in Peru of a network, Raiz/Root, which clearly has some feeling that the WSF is more than an NGO jamboree; by the Kidz in the Kamp who were discussing under a tree, and with informal translation, how to ensure that the emancipatory and critical forces had more impact on the Forum process; by the struggle, against all odds, of the US Znet people to mount ‘Life after Capitalism’, an event of post-capitalist propuesta within the Forum; by the increasing number of compañer@s, of various ages, identities, movements and sexual orientations, who believe that, in the construction of a meaningfully civil global society, transparency is not only the best policy but the right one.

./english/403.txt:7:Mass actions by networks that identify themselves as anti-capitalist have prompted both extensive mainstream media coverage and broad public interest in recent years. Nor has all of this attention been drowned out by what Matthew Fuller (2002) calls the current ‘war over the monopoly on terror’. As is proper, the anti-capitalist potential (or otherwise) of such movements has been widely debated. Amongst other things, this have involved assessment of their engagement (or otherwise) with contemporary class composition, and the risks within many of them of particular understandings of political practice: above all, the ‘activist’ syndrome (see, amongst others, Aufheben 2002; RTS 1999). Even making sense of the terrain and parameters of these movements is not always an easy task. Whilst formally constituted organisations play an integral part within them, in certain cases these movements’ experience of ‘"organising" may not take the form of "organizations" but of an ebb or flow of contact at myriad points’. Indeed, some have argued that their very confluence may lend a number of today’s movements an anti-systemic edge, to the point where ‘current struggles for particular changes are linking up into a collaboration whose impact may wind up being much larger than the sum of the individual influences’ (Cleaver 1999).

./english/410.txt:22:However, if the World Social Forum wants to become a global pressure group, it must narrow down its agenda. Only with a clearly defined program will a much needed dialog between Porto Alegre and Davos be possible. However, formulating such an agenda means excluding a range of alternative options and viewpoints. If the World Social Forum wants to deepen its international impact, it will no longer be able to claim to represent global civil society in toto.

./english/417.txt:161:-> Participation of activists whose impact lie beyond the current forum impact need to be ex-

./english/417.txt:363:  Participation of activists whose impact lie beyond the current forum needs to be ex-

./english/470.txt:35:It wasn't that the people sitting around the table in Florence weren't an impressive group. They were worldly and wise and a good number of them came from movements and constituencies of great importance around the world. And it wasn't that the people at the table didn't want a more democratic and participatory approach. This desire was raised repeatedly. It was just that after a short time at that meeting it became obvious that despite the members' stature and desires, the people on the council were not the real locus of WSF power. The powers that be had some functionaries present, chairing the meeting…and it was clear that the powers that be had decided what the agenda was, what would be made known regarding the overall WSF situation to the people in the room, and what the international council could be permitted to discuss—but that those present had only very limited impact.

./english/473.txt:7:Certainly, the world is still a terrible mess, and many of the participants of the forum - or in most cases the people they represent - live in extreme poverty and face early deaths. Neoliberal capitalism is still king, and in spite of victories across South America especially, the global left still has less impact that their counterparts at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland who are also gathering this week.

./english/475.txt:22:* Although there have been earlier years when more than one OWorld Social Forum¹ meetings have taken place within the same year (if we take into account not just the so-called Oworld¹ meetings but also the so-called Oregional¹ ones, like the European Social Forum and the Asian Social Forum, and also the Othematic¹ ones, as was held in Colombia in 2003), this is the first time when a specific and presumably strategic decision was taken to hold a polycentric world meeting ie several meetings at the same time, spread across the world. One consideration was logistical meaning that more people across the world will therefore have access to the Forum (since it will be taking place closer to everybody in the world); another, perhaps, was to have an even greater and more widespread impact, across the world. This latter dream is spoiled a little by the necessity of having to postpone the Karachi Forum (because of the outfall of the earthquake last year), but the concept remains. But for this to happen, this presumably will require some degree of coordination between the Fora that are taking place at the same time, for synergy to take place towards a more global assertion of civil (if not actually Opopular¹) power; and at the minimum, some consciousness that Othe other¹ is also taking place at the same time (almost). So we need to ask at least the following questions / assess the Fora in at least these terms : Is the Forum this year in fact going to help a much larger number of people to gain access to the World Social Forum ? What ways are there for this synergy to take shape ? And will this polycentric design in fact create a greater impact than the single world meetings ?

./english/500.txt:42:She said that the WSF had tremendous impact in its early meetings to challenge neo-liberal economics. ''It brought together diverse groups with different ideologies and the events had a lot of creative energy,'' she told IPS. ''But when you don't have anything to unify the groups, it becomes difficult to mobilise people constantly and regularly.''

./english/510.txt:22:These three Forums will represent a new experience in the World Social Forum context. What are the issues involved in this innovation? Some consider that decentralization could weaken the impact of the Forum in the fight to overcome neo-liberalism. Others say that, on the contrary, its strength would be precisely the creation of forums of exchange and link-up held simultaneously in three continents. Some think that the three Forums should concentrate on several common themes and link up with each other, as a movement would. Others think that, as a forum and not a movement, the richness of our polycentric Forum would be the diversity of themes discussed.

./english/513.txt:39:Can the Forum collectively define common world gatherings or rallying points in order to enable the struggles taking place everywhere to express themselves in one or more key moments, and so achieve greater impact? Can it provide a focus for a common agenda and calls that inter-relate the multiple, inter-related resistances/struggles to the different sources of oppression within the system? Can the Forum’s agenda prioritise vital issues such as dignity, sovereignty, justice and peace? Common sense says so; the political significance of the agenda of struggle against the model also says so, and in fact it is already happening, but these issues still don’t form part of its explicit aims.

./english/519.txt:28:In Bamako, the African edition of the polycentric Forum has, for the first time, introduced com-pletely the self-organized dynamics, which characterizes the Forum’s format within the continent. Ten thousand people participated in the event and hundreds of activities took place, it was a suc-cessful process, assembling the entirety of debates on pan-African tradition and its renewal and also many questions that are strongly present in the continent – from the free trade impact to Aids, from migrations to the role of international agencies. The Forum also witnessed an important effort to re-cover the anti-imperialist, anti-colonial and socialist tradition, inherited from Bandung – a seminar stimulated by Samir Amin, right before the Forum, debated the non-aligned movement’s legacy, which was born in April 1955, in Indonesia. Bamako demonstrated an improvement of the WSF process in the continent and sealed a promising direction towards Nairobi 2007.

./english/519.txt:61:Another discussed issue in the WSF since its creation is the relation-ship between the Forum and governments and parties. We went on these problems in Porto Alegre in 2002 when PT and the French social-democracy tried to emphasize their presence in the Forum aiming the electoral dispute and again in 2003 when Lula went to the Gigantinho to justify his trip to Davos the following day. In 2005 the WSF watched Lula’s efforts again trying to make the PT government the best ever and Chavez presenting himself as the most authentic left leadership in the continent. In Mumbai the dispute engaged by an Asian communism sector led to the Mumbai Resis-tance parallel realization. In the European Social Forum process each event had to deal with prob-lems in the relationship with the left parties in the countries that were holding the events — wid-ened in the London edition because of the relationship with the London Authority. We did not build the WSF process separated from the party and government disputes but we have always tried to weaken the impact of these disputes preserving the process authonomy in a way that it would not link the process with any specific project, no matter how worthy it is.

./english/527.txt:58:One point seems to be beyond controversy. The objectives of the many participants of the forum are not equal and some seem to be defenders of a more consistent neoliberalism instead of being against it. It remains an open question whether all are really for radical democracy. Some participants seem to think that all problems can be solved by giving a more important role to civil society. Sometimes, one even starts to wonder whether all are really for ‘another world’. Just think of all the movements that joined Lula – and six months later the World Bank – to defend the millennium goals against poverty. These NGOs now accept an air ticket tax, a consumption tax without any structural impact on redistribution or on ecology. These measures cannot even be called neokeynesian. Or think of the NGOs that march against the WTO. Some of them are not against free trade but want ‘real free trade’ and are marching against the interests of poor countries.

./english/532.txt:21:The values engendered by our fledgling networked culture may [...] prove quite applicable to the broader challenges of our time and help a world struggling with the impact of globalism, the lure of fundamentalism and the clash of conflicting value systems [...] One model for the open-ended and participatory process through which legislation might occur in a networked democracy can be found in the open source software movement.[7]

./english/532.txt:23:Rushkoff does not try to draw direct parallels between FLOSS and other forms of activity in the manner of Schneider and Lovink, but argues equally problematically that the model used in open source software composing communities could be usefully applied to democratic political organisation. A growing willingness to engage with the underlying code of the democratic process,’ he contends, ‘could eventually manifest in a widespread call for revisions to our legal, economic and political structures.’[8] Clearly, then, the idea of openness has appeal across rather different constituencies – here we already have both the reformist-liberal and the radicals activists claiming openness as their ally. Indeed, as ICT theorist Biella Coleman suggests, the widespread adoption and use of the idea of openness and its ‘profound political impact’ may precisely be contingent on its peculiarly transpolitical appeal. ‘FLOSS,’ she writes, resists

./english/532.txt:64:3. A confrontational attitude, since we do not think that lobbying can have a major impact in such biased and undemocratic organisations, in which transnational capital is the only real policy-maker.

./english/534.txt:48:Perhaps at this point the WSF has served its original purpose of altering the discourse around economic and social policies. It has been a wonderful place to break out of the isolation and solitary local organising efforts, and connect with others around the world working on similar issues, and regain energy to continue the struggle. It has realized the goals of the slogan "globalize the struggle, globalize hope." No matter what shape it takes in the future, the WSF has been a historic experience with a lasting impact on social movements around the world.

./english/544.txt:1:Will WSF make an impact?

./english/553.txt:195:However, today many different civil society groups in Europe all want discussion and dialogue to understand the impacts of Mandelson’s proposed policies. These groups include social movements, trade unions and others working on issues such as agriculture, workers’ rights, consumer interests, development, environment, women’s issues, corporate accountability, climate change, migration, war, etc. Trade policy can no longer be an issue which a few groups address from a development or an environmental angle. It has to be understood within the context of how the EU is pushing forward a neoliberal agenda not only in countries outside of the EU, but also within the EU borders.

./english/553.txt:205:· What are the impacts of further trade liberalisation on the number and quality of jobs not only in developing countries, but also in Europe?

./english/569.txt:7:As two participants from Britain, we greatly enjoyed sharing all this, well as encountering once again the warmth and hospitality of the Brazilian people and the dynamism of their social movements. It is clear that the ideas and agenda of the global justice movement have as wide an appeal as ever. All the same, there was another side to the 5th WSF, one that raises serious concerns about its potential impact on the world-wide movement against neo-liberal globalization and imperial war.

./english/569.txt:19:The fact that even an imperialist warmonger like Blair feels obliged to express a concern for the plight of the global South is a tribute to the impact of our movement, whose origins lie in part in the campaign against Third World debt that gathered pace during the 1990s. But the transfer of resources involved in, for example, Brown's proposed 'Marshall Plan for Africa' falls far short of what is required really to change the lives of the wretched of the earth. More than that, every aid or debt reduction package comes charged with conditions that would introduce yet more of the neo-liberal poison that helped to produce the present immiseration in the first place.

./english/571.txt:29:One way to avoid political silence without violating the Charter of Principles is to facilitate processes whereby organizations that take part in the WSF produce political declarations. The most important attempt to move beyond the self-imposed limits for declarations and other forms of political action is the Assembly of Social Movements that has taken place in all annual events of the WSF. Ideally, most of the participating organizations would sign such declarations and they could have powerful political impact. Until now, the social movement declarations produced during the WSF events have not been circulated very widely and their impact has been relatively modest. Nevertheless, they have created controversies among the WSF organizers.

./english/571.txt:120:(2) The first meeting in January 2001 attracted some 5000 participants of 117 countries and thousands of Brazilian activists. For the second forum, the figures had grown significantly, rising to over 12 000 official delegates from 123 countries and tens of thousands of total participants, mostly from Brazil. The third forum in January 2003 attracted over 20 000 official delegates and approximately 100 000 participants in total. The global media impact of the second and third Forum was also significantly stronger than in the first year. In 2004 and 2005, the number of total participants was close to 150 000.

./english/574.txt:10:A profound political frustration underlies this self-doubt. The global social justice movement and the anti-war movement have both effectively won the moral arguments. But they have had not had a commensurate impact on the exercise of political and economic power. This was visible in the smoke signals coming from the World Economic Forum across the geographical and political divide in Davos. There, the corporate elite were morally on the defensive, desperate to prove that they too cared about poverty yet stubbornly continuing the policies which daily mean millions go to sleep hungry – including the poor of Brazil whose government, under president Lula, (who made a brief and controversial appearance at the Forum) is being forced by the IMF to pay in debt relief which would otherwise go towards the social programme for which the leader of the Brazilian Workers Party was elected was elected.

./english/576.txt:14:"I am a political militant," said Brazilian President Luiz Inácio "Lula" da Silva, clad in a white jacket, as he addressed a stadium full of people during the first day of workshops. "I belong here." Downplaying the roaring PT loyalists, the press would overstate the impact of a small but energetic section of protesters who chastised Lula for continuing to pay Brazil's foreign debt and for failing to buck the economic policies prescribed by the IMF. It is nevertheless true that the President, a former metalworker and union leader who many viewed as a leftist icon when he took office two years ago, had the record of his administration critically scrutinized by a variety of panels throughout the week. As in the past, Lula also visited Davos this year. He went, he said, on a mission to confront wealthy leaders with the same demand of eradicating poverty that he championed in Porto Alegre and to elaborate a "new geography" of politics in which Southern countries would not submit to being considered inferior.

./english/576.txt:19:"Three years ago everyone was talking about Plan Colombia; two years ago it was Iraq," a friend who has participated in several Porto Alegres said to me. For this year, she identified the right to clean, public water as the Forum's emergent issue. But, with a several-hundred page program listing panels on the challenges of global poverty, trade, war, and debt, as well as on Open Source software, the trafficking of women and girls, and the impact of culture on social change, any attempt to identify a single focus would necessarily be arbitrary.

./english/576.txt:36:Saramago would have none of it. "I consider the concept of utopia worse than useless," he argued. "What has transformed the world is not utopia, but need." Also, "The only time and place where our work can have impact--where we can see it and evaluate it--is tomorrow.... Let's not wait for utopia."

./english/579.txt:4:There is an obvious irony in the shifting of the 4th World Social Forum (held between January 16 and 21, 2004) from Porto Alegre, the city of the participatory budget fully geared to welcome the WSF, to an indifferent Mumbai, the city most starkly symbolizing the impact of neoliberalism in India. Mumbai is a rapidly de-industrialising, financial-commercial-services centre with an expanding informal sector of self-employed and unorganized labour. It has heavy vehicular and small factory pollution with over 40 percent of its 17 million population living in slums. The choice of the WSF venue – a dusty, environment-unfriendly, long disused industrial site – completed the symbolism. But the restricted area of the venue contrasted sharply with the sprawling geography of Porto Alegre’s WSF, forcing an extraordinary physical mingling of over a 100,000 participants with more than 15,000 from outside India.

./english/579.txt:10:The Social Forum project that first emerged in South America reflected a new historical conjuncture – not just the two-decades assault of neoliberalism on that continent but also the effective disintegration of the old left and its replacement by a more inchoate, plural and diverse set of progressive actors in civil society. Their growing radicalization in the late nineties found its organizational expression in the WSF and its associated ‘politics of the open space’. India, however, is where the old left (still largely unrepentant about its Stalinist and Maoist legacies and traditions) survives as a substantial force replete with ‘their’ mass fronts of trade unions, women, peasant and student wings. Since out of a total labour force of some 340 million, only 9 million or less than 3 percent are unionized, it is hardly surprising that there also exists a breathtaking array of social movements, single issue groups, and a spectrum of NGOs from the most progressive and radical to those whose principal function is to be the new ‘privatised’ service-providers offsetting the impact of the neoliberal state’s abandonment of its multiple social responsibilities in health, education, social security, basic needs, etc.

./english/579.txt:16:In addition, a conscious effort was made (with uneven success) to promote more thorough reflection on the relationship between political parties and social movements, on discussing alternatives to neoliberal globalization, and on the role of the nation-state and nationalism in an era when many are calling for new structures of global governance. The extent to which various activist groups were able to utilize Mumbai WSF to enhance international coordination, networking and planning for common actions clearly varied, and the results of their endeavours will only become evident in the future. What hopes and lessons for India and globally does WSF 2004 carry? Before addressing this crucial question, there is another shorter term question that needs a direct answer. What has been, or is likely to be, the political impact of Mumbai WSF on the current Indian political scene?

./english/579.txt:22:There remains a significant disjunction between the political realities on the ground and the kind of political context in which the holding of a WSF could be expected to have an immediate and meaningful impact. Since the beginning of 2002 the fulcrum of Indian politics has moved further to the right.

./english/580.txt:17:Let us now turn back to the first issue, i.e. the need felt to capture the concerns being most prominently articulated in the region, i.e. India, South Asia and Asia. The WSF 2004 programme, in choosing its Foci, deepened the reflection of the WSF Charter of Principles in the programme format and methodology. The WSF Charter sees the WSF as an "open space" that articulates opposition to imperialist globalisation. The Foci for the WSF 2004 programme -- neo-liberal globalisation, war and militarisation, patriarchy, caste and race, sectarian violence based on religion, ethnicity, etc. -- constituted a deeper exploration of the Charter. While the last four foci are not explicitly part of the Charter as focal issues for the WSF open space to discuss, all of them are part of the running current in the Charter. The intent, then, while choosing these foci was to make explicit the various dimensions of imperialist globalisation and its impact on people. The intent was clearly not to look at these foci as "water tight compartments" but rather to explore how imperialist globalisation deepens and helps spread the tentacles of patriarchy, war and militarisation, exploitation based on caste and race, and religious and ethnic sectarian strife.

./english/580.txt:19:It was important to make these connections because there has been a tendency to view imperialist globalisation only in terms of its economic impacts -- i.e. in terms of impact on trade, debt, poverty, social and physical infrastructure, food security, etc. By explicitly articulating the foci, the attempt was to bring out the immediate and most striking impacts of neo-liberal globalisation. This, it was felt, would allow the programme to make explicit the connections between neo-liberal globalisation and its impact on the social and political space, and not just the economic space.

./english/580.txt:78:· The mobilisation efforts in India before WSF 2004, built upon the momentum created before the ASF in 2003 and there was, in general, a deepening of the WSF process in most regions in India. This found reflection in the very large number of events in Mumbai that articulated the concerns of a diverse section of groups. The vibrancy of the participants in Mumbai and the large presence of sections who are marginalised by globalisation while at the same time facing the brunt of the impact of neo liberal economic policies was, in large measure, the result of the deepening of the WSF process in large parts of India. Unfortunately this process could not be carried out extensively at a global level, except for global groups that had links with Indian groups that had been part of this mobilisation process.

./english/580.txt:80:· Learning from the experience of the ASF, the WSF programme provided extensive space for cultural expression. While a majority of groups that participated in this (except for in the large cultural programmes on the “main stage”) were Indian, it created a substantial impact on all the participants and opened up the possibility of different kinds of expressions and articulations for future Social Forums.

./english/580.txt:86:· Generally, it is our assessment, that the opening up of the large events for “self organisation” left a positive impact on the Forum. It allowed a large diversity of concerns not usually focused in large measure in Social Forums to be reflected in the large events – for example issues related to child rights, human rights, disability rights, concerns of sexual minorities, caste and race, etc.

./english/582.txt:24:There were 140 installations like this, and the Forum of the workshops and the seminars was as diverse, plural and colorful as those of Porto Alegre. Who walked 19th morning, along part of one of the corridors, could find debates about the increasing abortion of female embryos in India ( qualified as “ hidden femalecide”); about the international campaign against North – American bases (promoted by a 25 organizations network based in different countries); about Cordillera Peoples’ Alliance ( a Philippine woman explained, in English, that for many Asiatic communities, the concept individual, sees in each human being, a part of the community), about the new international relations system ( emerged from a refined critic about the lack of transparency and democracy in WTO, IMF and WB); about dwelling rights and livable cities ( a fiction in Mumbai), about the struggle against monarchy in Nepal ( besides the rounded faces and the hard eyes of the Nepalese, it attracted the attention the fact that they reached to understand each other, even if they were speaking so low, that many times the voices were replaced for the microphone of the room next door), about the impact of globalization among the “ untouchable” Indians ( the debates on these topics were always the most crowded and able to attract the street Forum).

./english/582.txt:34:He impresses for the rich information that he has, for the agility with which he manages, for his capability to formulate concrete alternatives. He already defended the creation of a Word Taxes Organization ( to fight the fiscal wars between countries), a new IMF, an international mechanism to automatically interrupt the currencies negotiations, when they are under speculators attack. But one of his information will cause special impact on the public. The international financial order in force nowadays is so unfair, explains Sonny, that, under it, is India who aids to support the consumptions and the investments of North American people ( including the arms race) and not vice- versa

./english/586.txt:10:The twofold need to evaluate and spread the accumulated knowledge and prepare plans of collective action with a sound political and technical basis led to more discussion than never before in previous Forums of the relationship between expert and grass-roots knowledge, and, more specifically, between social scientists and popular struggles. Several workshops were devoted to this general topic. One of them, entitled “New Partnerships for New Knowledges,” was organized by the Center for Social Studies (CES) of the University of Coimbra. The participants were social scientists and activists. Immanuel Wallerstein (USA), Anibal Quijano (Peru), D. L. Sheth (India), Goran Therborn (Sweden), Hilary Wainright (UK) and myself were among the social scientists; Jai Sen (India), Irene Leon (Equador) and Moema Miranda (Brazil) were among the activists. The discussion concentrated on themes that are at the core of the idea of public sociology: the relationship between expertise and engagement; from critique to plans for action; the reliability of the knowledge underlying social struggles and its critique; the impact on social scientists of their engagement with lay or popular knowledges; activists as producers of knowledge.

./english/587.txt:8:The first impression was of cacophony. India itself is more than 1 billion people, a diverse world speaking many languages – more than 40, nearly half of them official – with its castes, the social exclusion of dalits (untouchables or casteless people) and around 300 million living in abject poverty. At the other extreme, around 200 million are integrated with the globalised market. The impact is culturally and politically staggering, especially to the heightened perceptions of activists of an emerging planetary movement. Inevitably, we are led to ask ourselves whether we do enough, whether we are outraged enough at the inhumanity that so many women and men - children, adults and elderly - are condemned to and whether we are truly radical in our proposals for change.

./english/587.txt:16:All in all, it was a Forum that caused impact because it was surprising. Certainly, we are still just spinning our wheels in terms of methods for dialoguing and collectively constructing proposals and strategies. We are aware that, by building on the diversity of social actors and respect for pluralism, we are grasping the opportunity to bring into being a new political culture, one that is universal, cosmopolitan, inclusive; that is, a new way of doing change-making politics. However, we have set ourselves a task that calls for more daring and radicalism than first apparent. Given the crisis besetting the dominant order that grants almost exclusive rights to capital, adhesion to the message is a guarantee of the strength of the wave of citizens action. However, we must transform that into strength for reconstructing a sustainable, democratic world in solidarity, for ourselves and for future generations. That is the main lesson to be drawn from Mumbai.

./english/589.txt:116:When beginning its activities, Coca Cola launched an advertising campaign to convince locals that there would be major positive impact on the region, mainly in terms of employment.

./english/605.txt:4:IV World Social Forum (WSF) held in Mumbai, India, from January 16th to January 21st 2004 has proved the vitality of the“WSF-Format”, from the “open space” method that gradually has been built in the three Porto Alegre forums, in the two European Social Forums (Florence and Paris) and in the Asiatic Social Forum (Hyderabad), as well as countless another forums. The Mumbai Forum has renewed and expanded the achieve of the proposal, generating a wave of vitality in the process. But, after three years, there is a general perception that it needs a change in its directions, focusing specially on the articulation of actions capable of having an impact in the balance of world power. This was the focus in the discussion in the International Council (IC), gathered in Mumbai in January 15th, January 22nd and 23rd in order to prepare the process towards V WSF to be held in Porto Alegre, in January 2005.

./english/605.txt:8:There is an estimative that 135,000 to 150,000 people took part in the 1,200 WSF activities. The WSF 2004 has done a great impact in Indian left sectors. This country is marked by regionalism, communalism and diversity in languages, religions and cultures. It has been prepared since 2002 – in fact, the Asian Social Forum in January 2003 was its first rehearsal. It was done in a more plural and demanding context than the former WSFs, stimulated by a more heterogeneous left sector than the Latin American or European ones. It was the result of the unitary action of organizations who come from very distant political traditions – from Gandhism to the more traditional Communist Parties, from various Maoist organizations to NGOs. This unity was carefully built thanks to a wide preparation and mobilization process in the different regions in the country. That explains why the Forum was marked – respecting its Charter of Principles – by a less reticent posture towards the political parties, eliminating the image, for times raised, that they are strange to the Forum and to the wider struggle that makes sense to it.

./english/605.txt:15:The Indian Organizing Committee (formed by 48 entities) took long to choose the city to house the IV WSF, but its final decision has turned out to be more than justified. Bombay, now called Mumbai, has a weak left presence and is ruled by the extreme right – what an impact has it provoked in the Forum participants to feel the city! Even for those who have been to India before, staying a week in the neighborhood of the exhibition park Nesco Grounds, in Goregaon, north edge of Great Mumbai (30 km from Colaba, south of the peninsula, the financial and tourist “city center”) was a lively lesson about the results of the globalization suffered by billions of people.

./english/605.txt:96:The fact is that the Forum still is much more a sequence of events than a permanent process. As an event, it ought to have a festive and mediatic dimension, in order to multiply its impact. Some severe critics still carry their batteries against this essentially positive dimension of the process (what is different from transforming it in a show), but the backstage problem is another one, one of the structural relation between the Forum and the wider movement which gives sense to it.

./english/625.txt:12:The main debates addressed directly the theme of war and peace, of US violence in Afghanistan and in Iraq - but the approach was completely different, making us realise how isolated we are in our western points of view. The war made a far greater impact on eastern peoples, because it took place right next door.... It was rather like imagining how it would have been for us if the North American invasion had happened in Argentina.

./english/625.txt:24:In terms of repercussion, not holding the WSF simultaneously with Davos precluded drawing the counterpoints between the two events, so intensely played on by the world media at previous editions. That reduced its international impact.

./english/634.txt:14:Aside from numbers and mega-male events (which were not as prevalent as Klein makes out, although the general impression is that women were less well represented than the previous year—an ominous sign!), the atmosphere at Porto Alegre III was electrifying – 5 days of multi-ethnic, multi-racial, internationalism in a country bubbling over with hope after the overwhelming electoral victory of a veritable “working-class hero” to Brazil’s presidency (Lula). Social analyst Peter Waterman has given the flavor of Porto Alegre III in this personal commentary: “[I was inspired by the] energetic and innovative social protest, and original analyses of the local-national-global dialectic in Argentina…by the Kidz in the Kamp who were discussing under a tree, and with informal translation, how to ensure that the emancipatory and critical forces have more impact on the Forum process…by the increasing number of compañer@s, of various ages, identities, movements and sexual orientations, who believe that, in the construction of a meaningfully civil global society, transparency is not only the best policy but the only one” (Waterman, “First

./english/634.txt:19:A second “triumph” at Porto Alegre III was the WSF’s for the first time completely upstaging the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF, a club of the world’s wealthiest individuals, or “unelected Masters of the Universe" as the London Financial Times has dubbed them), held this year in Davos, Switzerland. Indeed, even the harshest critics of WSF acknowledge that in terms of world impact on both public opinion and many key power centers the WSF is beginning to leave the WEF in its wake. As one commentator noted in Terraviva (a WSF daily newspaper printed during Porto Alegre III): “Davos is discussing the crisis of confidence afflicting its own [neoliberal] model, whereas Porto Alegre shows an impressive liveliness.” WEF president Klaus Schwab reportedly said that the new year found the world at its most “fragile” and “dangerous” state in the WEF’s 33-year history. Despite this, the millionaire delegates to Davos scrambled around all the major issues of the day without coming up with anything resembling a unified leadership position to guide the world further along the paths of neoliberal globalization--this time, by their own admission, with a much needed “more human face.” The WEF once again stated its agreement with the Tobin Tax but took no action toward its implementation. On the burning issue of the US war plans in Iraq, the WEF delegates at Davos floundered completely. US Secretary of State Colin Powell “did not receive loud applause at the Davos meeting, as did many others…[who] criticized the US for ‘militarizing the world” (Terraviva).

./english/646.txt:80:It has become increasingly clear that the WSF is much more than a series of increasingly large annual events. Indeed the main mechanism for the globalisation of the WSF process has been the holding of regional and thematic forums in various parts of the world. Among the most impactful of these events was a forum on neoliberalism organised in Argentina in August 2002, the European Social Forum in Florence in November 2002 and the Asian Social Forum in Hyderabad in January 2003. These forums have formed part of the semi-official forum calendar, maintained and controlled jointly by the Organising Committee/Secretariat and the International Council.

./english/646.txt:108:Until now, social movement declarations produced during the WSF events have not been circulated very widely and their impact has been relatively modest. The clearest exception is the call for anti-war demonstrations of 15 February 2003 that many movements gathered in the WSF 2003 in Porto Alegre made public. Nevertheless, they have created controversy among the organisers, with people like Chico Whitaker fearing that the media may consider them semi-official. One way to avoid political silence without violating the Charter of Principles may be for the organisers to facilitate their production and endorsement.

./english/646.txt:140:The global media impact of the second and third Porto Alegre forum was significantly stronger than in 2001. If there were fewer attempts in the second and third year to interact with the WEF, this reflected a growing self-confidence of the organisers, some of whom liked to repeat that “from now onwards Davos will be the shadow event of Porto Alegre”.

./english/651.txt:6:The World Social Forum is part of that process. Its short trajectory is indicative of how expectations regarding globalization are shifting. As a Forum, its aim is precisely to enable a global agenda to be built up in a process of dialogue among the whole diversity of civil networks, public campaigns, alliances and coalitions that, in their specificity and differences, stand in opposition to the dominant globalization. That purpose was helped by identifying as anti-Davos, as counter to the ideas and perspectives issuing from the World Economic Forum. That is how it was in 2001, at World Social Forum I in Porto Alegre, which surprised by its innovation and multiple potential. Now, from January 31 to February 5, at World Social Forum II, once again in Porto Alegre, adhesion to the idea of the Forum and the major impact it has had in the world media have turned the tables. Although it has existed for only two years - negligible against the 32 of the World Economic Forum at Davos - the World Social Forum at Porto Alegre now seems to be dictating the agenda. Now it is from their side, from Davos, that the opposition - anti-Porto Alegre - has to come...

./english/651.txt:14:The strategic challenges facing us are considerable. The global, citizens agenda we want to pursue depends precisely on the strength of our social and cultural diversity and of the multiple responses that grow out of it as counter proposals to the one-dimensional thinking of prevailing globalization. The distinguishing mark of the World Social Forum resides precisely in our ability to build the space necessary for global networks and movements to meet, dialogue and exchange while respecting and strengthening their own diversity and autonomy. The greatest challenge is to build bridges for convergence in diversity. That is something we are just starting to invent. The results and the impact are not seen, however, by those who are decidedly in the opposing trenches or by those who - worse still - do not believe in the difference they can make by participating as citizens in determining the course this world will take. Being among those who believe than another world is possible is in itself already very gratifying and encourages us to put our best efforts into seeing that wave grow.