Desde abajo y a la izquierda : an ethnography of transnational activism

Autonomist movements are unified across context through shared discourses of autonomy, direct action and radical democracy. Decentralized networks of autonomist collectives are responsible for the transnational activism often referred to as "grassroots globalization". This has largely fallen outside academic purview, however, as both marxist and liberal theoretical perspectives on social movements honour state-centric politics. Mobilizing the concepts of "autonomy" and "counterpower", this experimental, multisited ethnography (Marcus 1999; 2006) introduces autonomist politics and investigates how commonality is built upon asymmetry (Moore 2006: 447) and conversation across difference (Tsing 2005: 2) in transnational activism by concentrating on collaboration among autonomist collectives, anarchist movements, and indigenous movements at four "moments of conjuncture" (Tsing 2005: 272): (1) cooperation among anarchists and indigenous ecologists in Venezuela; (2) the transnational solidarity movement surrounding the Asamblea Popular de los Pueblos de Oaxaca ; (3) solidarity activism with the Six Nations land reclamation in Canada; (4) the solidarity network of transnational Zapatismo. By tracing the practices of collaboration and listening to the palabra of participants for overlapping discourse and practices, the research exposes and analyses congruency and disjuncture among movements as well as among principles and practice therein. Findings highlight the intersection of race, class and gender in participation dynamics as well as emergent discourses. The conclusion argues that anarchoindigenism and related solidarity projects constitute an important "conversation" in the global anticapitalist movement; however, the secular and "public" nature of politics as constructed within political economy (i.e. anarchism) precludes radical solidarity with indigenous peoples and women most generall