Consciousness and Praxis: Informal Learning in Social Movements

The no borders movement has been an important site of anti-imperialist resistance, and as such it provides a valuable point of entry into problematizing the contradictions that constitute the relations of consciousness, praxis and ideology. By tracing the recent history of no borders activism in relation to the intensification of neoliberalism, and the prevalence of diffuse models of power, the analysis illustrates the ways in which critical praxis has been limited by the current milieu. Working from an anti-racist feminist perspective I utilize examples drawn from no borders activism to demonstrate the very real limits of informal and incidental learning in social movements. The analysis argues against the supplanting of consciousness with subjectivity as a way to avoid the problems associated with structuralist analysis. Instead, I have suggested that critical education for social action requires a dialectical engagement with the social relations that we live in, contest and transform.MAS