Democracy Ateneo Summary 11-17-12

Compañer@s,

What follows is a brief summary of the Universidad de la Tierra Califas' Democracy Ateneo convened on Saturday, November 17, 2012. Six of us convened the regularly scheduled ateneo with a brief welcome and overview of Uni-Tierra Califas as a project. In this instance, we noted its origins in the organizing efforts of  Acción Zapatista in Austin beginning in the mid-1990s and weaving back to San Jose via Humboldt and Santa Barbara over the years. We also briefly discussed UT Califas' investment in convivial research and insurgent learning strategically organized through temporary autonomous zones of knowledge production, or the interconnected spaces of collective learning that make an effort to reconstruct/reclaim a social infrastructure of community.

We concluded the introductions with a brief discussion of the ateneo highlighting how it strategically disrupts the traditional, more formal sites of knowledge production such as the graduate seminar and lecture hall. We argue that the ateneo constructs a space that generates local situated knowledges that can be put into service of the strategic interests of communities of struggle. The ateneo also helps to advance local struggles that impact the community by putting strategic knowledges in service of specific community projects. The announcements and summaries produced through the ateneo both alert people about current struggles as well as archive local achievements, circulating collectively produced knowledge about the competing strategies of any given struggle. 

The November ateneo began with an invitation of participants to introduce themselves, present a primary project, and share a question(s). Unlike previous ateneos that have invited a single question from each participant at the outset, the brief presentations by way of introduction of each person generated a number of "thick questions" related to specific projects.

Projects included work around "community safety;"  negotiating queer spaces in sites not traditionally viewed as such, e.g. labor camps, working class bars; navigating formal academic spaces as either sites of discipline or advocacy; engaging militant research projects committed to producing "tactical cartographies;" and learning from community mobilizations such as in the case of the mobilizations in solidarity with Oscar Grant. In the case of community safety we wondered how to advance new tools for collective safety, such as "cop-watching," in a non-elitist or vanguardist way while at the same time engaging extended networks of families who also possess a variety of "technologies" for community regeneration.

Similarly, queer and trans communities pose the problem of how communities of struggle are claimed --including in traditional sites of community that are not necessarily available to marginalized members. The violences that exclude or marginalize members can take many forms. In some instances, the state's denial of services can define, narrate, or discipline a particular community. How then, do we politicize specific violences in such a way to bring people together and include folks not traditionally considered "part of the community?"

Another set of questions revolved around the negotiation of formal academic institutions and the different impact they might have on a community. In this as well as other instances "the community" should not be take for granted. More importantly, we must recognize that we might not always be aware of what "the community feels" about the work being done about them. How do we include community members and facilitate greater participation of local folks in specific research projects. Similarly, we recognize the validity of community as a site of critical knowledges, but what mechanisms or devices must we use to arrive at agreement about what constitutes a strategic set of knowledges? What are the critical arbiters to determine when a knowledge succeeds as a strategic knowledge?

Research that emerges from communities of struggle not only grapples with the problematic of what constitutes a strategic knowledge, but when producing tactical cartographies about gentrification, for example, we must interrogate wether or not that knowledge emerges from an "incarnate we." How do we promote the "incarnate we" and privilege a collective subject in our community praxis? The investment in a collective subject requires a taxonomy of not only what constitutes the "we" --what do we mean by a "we"-- but also how to move beyond abstractions. What are the epistemological dimensions of shared collectively produced knoweldges? Similarly, how do we construct cartographies of power that recognize the "heterotopia of popular spaces" while at the same moment attempt to "map" capitalist restructuring that responds to a community's creative energies (see, David Harvey, Rebel Cities <https://www.box.com/s/yb1mugi9ipc6mijv1997>).

A critical insight generated in the presentation of initial projects and questions revolved around the question of "the community" as a site of information. How do we think of "archives" in relation to community, especially if community is never static or homogenous but at times the composite of multiple spaces, or "other spaces," as related to Foucault's notion of and Harvey's use of heterotopia (see, M Foucault, "Of Other Spaces" <https://www.box.com/s/8jlyrct9imq2s6h2i62j>). The question of space as neither fixed or homogenous and always material poses critical issues regarding what constitutes the infrastructure of community. Specifically, we wondered about the specific architecture of social relations in relation to the physical sites of community regeneration. An example of the intersections of space and relation can be observed in the historic Oakland "sideshow." But, can we say a complex community "institution" such as the sideshow is a democratic space? What do we do with the contradictions, conflicts, and contingencies of the critical spaces of community?

The contradictions of community are enacted in the multiple sites of its reproduction. However, the diversity of community also raised critical questions about the location of any potential or already present anti-capitalist projects from within the community. How do we determine sites and potential resources of an anti-capitalism emerging from a complex diverse community. Many of us recognize the ever present contradictions of a community. We asked, for example, how a community articulated under the broad banner of Chican@ Studies is able to advance an anti-capitalism especially given the conflicted nature of what defines it as a community.

The conflicting interests present in any given community, such as the Chican@ Studies community, not only raises the complications of contradictions and conflicts within a community but exposes the possibility of competing cosmovisions. The vernacular, or the specific wisdoms and knowledge practices that define the grassroots, at times claim a cosmovision as not yet mediated by the dominant hegemonic system (see, Ivan Illich "Vernacular Values" <https://www.box.com/s/cfb89841995152eeb24f>). Moreover, the vernacular can also become the site of efforts to reclaim local knowledges, a process that marks the unfolding of the epistemological dimensions of colonialism over time. An example of the epistemological struggle brought on by colonial domination can be observed in the struggle for food, making our "guts" a site of primitive accumulation. We noted how food from across the globe is often redefined by European food preparation techniques. Efforts to convert vernacular food preparation practices from across the globe into food preparations dominated by European techniques can deny local food wisdoms. For example, Southern Europeans will saute a specific culinary dish when it should be roasted in the ground for hours or even days.

We revisited the question of space, the competing cosmovisions that emanate from them, and the issue of community as a site of information articulated as an "archive." Noting how community spaces are subject to narration or other strategies of re-presentation, we wondered if some spaces should be engaged on their own terms without necessarily attempting to "render them ethnographically" in order to narrate or translate them into a professional or project oriented discourse. The question of the autonomy of specific spaces is most pressing with regards spaces that emerge out of oral traditions or are animated by the spoken word. A commitment to respect the strategies of knowledge production of specific spaces, such as a bar or tavern, raised the challenges of constructing a sophisticated tool kit in order to listen to the community and to respond to the community's own views and desires about what strategic knowledges must be pursued.

Spaces and events can indeed bring us together and become critical systems of knowledge production. A clear example would be the recent March Against Police Brutality --a critical space that brought together a number of groups making it possible to archive a variety of strategic knowledges about efforts of community safety and oppositions to systematic police misconduct. But, it would be naive on our part to assume that a march, as important as it might be as an archive of strategic knowledges, is not without its complications and contradictions. How do we engage community mobilizations on their own terms and in the process "construct a more dialogic space?"

The Zapatistas' strategic use of spaces of encounter provides an important reference point. The Zapatistas' use of space not only convened a number of groups and communities as part of an effort of solidarity, it also mobilizes a diverse community for action. Once claimed, the complex Zapatista space of encounter makes available a diverse set of knowledges as a result of an on-going militant research. In other words, the many encounters, consultas, and public mobilizations work as a complex effort of facilitating an on-going space of encounter with Mexican civil society that has not only been a site of knowledge production and strategic action, but it has also been a moment to reconstitute radical democratic spaces --an insurgent learning where the ends and means collapse.

We concluded our reflection and action space by reiterating some of the critical questions that animated our discussion. Recognizing the difficulties of claiming spaces of specific communities of struggle, we asked about the complications of attempting to engage spaces of enchantment --what obligations do we have to participate in the enchantment without worrying about rendering its magic into a narrative, map, or discourse especially those imposed upon us by formal institutions.
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For access to previous Democracy Ateneo announcements and summaries go to <http://cril.mitotedigital.org/ateneo>. The Democracy Ateneo is convened every third Saturday of the month at Casa de Vicky (792 East Julian Street, San José), from 2-5pm.