Over the past two months, the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement has captured the attention of the world with its ongoing demonstrations aimed at highlighting the social, political and economic disparities that exist between the wealthiest 1% and the remaining 99% of the population. What began as a call by the Canada-based Adbusters magazine for a protest in the financial district of New York City to address the overwhelming influence and power of corporations and financial institutions has quickly spread across the country and throughout the world. However, defining OWS has proven difficult given its lack of hierarchical leadership, absence of specific, actionable demands and overwhelmingly cellular organizational structure. Views on the movement have varied with opponents framing OWS as “a growing mob” and supporters identifying OWS as “a democratic awakening”.
The initial Occupy Wall Street group based in New York City’s Zuccotti Park has served as a call to action for thousands of citizens and activists and has spawned hundreds of local and regional Occupy groups. These groups, largely formed and organized using social media and web-based tools (e.g. Facebook, Twitter, MeetUp), have carried the message of OWS beyond the confines of New York City and have provided a mechanism for similarly frustrated and disaffected individuals to voice their opposition to imbalances within the existing social, political and economic systems. “Occupy” groups have emerged in major US cities, such as Los Angeles, Chicago, Seattle, Dallas, Oakland and St. Louis, with hundreds of participants engaged in direct actions or virtual-based solidarity efforts. “Occupy” groups have also sprung up in small towns and more rural corners of the country, like Bartlesville (OK), Grants Pass (OR), Rolla (MO), Salmon (ID) and Barnstead (NH), often with only a handful of participants. Resultantly, as a type of social movement, OWS has provided a flexible framework for ideologically allied individuals and groups separated by large geographical distances to unite in a form of collective action.
This connectivity across space has not stopped at national boundaries. Almost from its inception, Occupy Wall Street became a venue for international activism and a vehicle for establishing common bonds between disparate social actions. By the fifth day of OWS action in New York City, media outlets and blogs were reporting the participation of international activists side-by-side with New York OWS activists. One international activist in particular, Monica Lopez from Spain, was highlighted in a number of media reports, including an interview with Amy Goodman on Democracy Now. The coverage of Lopez’s involvement in OWS was often framed as an indicator of how the energy and frustration of the OWS movement had resonated throughout large swathes of the world’s population. However, few of these early reports could conceive how widespread the OWS movement has now become.
Based on analysis of social networks, specifically Facebook and MeetUp, the map below reveals the distribution of Occupy groups across the globe. Presently there are 826 Occupy groups organized in the United States and 352 organized in other parts of the world. Canada (50), Germany (48) and the United Kingdom (38) have the highest number of Occupy groups outside the United States; however, other countries, such as Albania, Bangladesh, Chile, Dominican Republic, Israel, Jordan, Malaysia, Namibia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan, have also seen the rise of local OWS groups. The spread of OWS is continuing as activists make common cause and form bonds of solidarity with social protest movements at work in other parts of the world (e.g. anti-austerity movements in Greece, ‘Arab Spring’ movements in Tunisia, Libya and Egypt, social justice protests in Israel). While the final form, extent and impact of the OWS movement remains to be seen it is clear that OWS and similar social movements are redefining how we perceive, engage and understand activism in a contemporary context.
Based on analysis of social networks, specifically Facebook and MeetUp, the map below reveals the distribution of Occupy groups across the globe. Presently there are 826 Occupy groups organized in the United States and 352 organized in other parts of the world. Canada (50), Germany (48) and the United Kingdom (38) have the highest number of Occupy groups outside the United States; however, other countries, such as Albania, Bangladesh, Chile, Dominican Republic, Israel, Jordan, Malaysia, Namibia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and Taiwan, have also seen the rise of local OWS groups.
4 Comments
Armchair Anthropology?
Even though “Anthropology News” has done a wonderful job of following the Occupy Wall Street protests, this weekend I got a different vibe from many of my colleagues. Our annual meeting in Montreal truly embodied how disconnected the field of anthropology often is from real social change. Having forgot my coat in Detroit, and being short on money, I strolled the streets of Montreal pondering the state of affairs for our discipline: shrinking budgets, job shortages, and a certain pretension that often leads many of us on the job hunt feeling alienated and hopeless.
When I visited the ‘Occupy Montreal’ collective up the road from the annual meetings, I did so with a certain empathy. I was in the cold for only a few hour intervals and I was frozen to the core. I admired all of these activists who braved sickness and arrest in the freezing cold to protest the corporate bankers who have dealt the world its worst economic hand in nearly a century. On Saturday, activists made their way to Le Palais des Congres to fire up the masses and to my astounding surprise were shunned. It seems many anthropologists are more about observation than participation. I overheard my colleagues uttering such things as “this isn’t the place for this”, “somebody alert security”, and “who let them in here”. Others turned their backs and continued there conversations as if nothing was going on at all.
Then it all clicked. How can we turn our backs on the activists who are fighting our fight? Without corporate greed, we would have more jobs, we would have more funding for research, and anthropology would have a more sustainable place in the global world. Margaret Mead once said, “it only takes a few great minds to change the world, indeed, its the only thing that ever has.” Its just to bad most of us don’t want to be a part of this change. Perhaps, many are more concerned with getting tenure, or losing tenure– to join our brothers and sisters of La resistance. We could have had panels, discussions, or even an impromptu meeting with the Occupy folks, instead many chose to turn a blind eye. We could have joined environmental groups, students, human rights organizations, and unions in their crusade to resist corporate hegemony. Instead, the entire conference did little to embrace the most important movement of our time.
The sad thing is that in the 60′s and 70′s many anthropologists were at the forefront of immense social and environmental change. Where are you now? In the Hilton or the Westin? At Starbucks or a fancy bistro? Maybe you are just content in your cozy chairs, waiting for the next generation to undo all the inequality that has become synonymous with the modern global village. For the first time in my life, I was ashamed to say I was an anthropologist, that I was with “those folks”. It is very dangerous when we refuse to be the change in the world we wish to be, and that is exactly what happened this weekend in Montreal.
Eric J. Montgomery
Irvin D. Reid Honors College
Wayne State University
Detroit, MI
The world is not the same as it was decades ago when anthropologists were involved in anti-war demonstrations, and went to jail for a cause. I have not been to the AAA meetings in many years, partly because I lived far away from America, and partly because attendance was so damned expensive. Now I don’t go because I like the smaller meetings better, and I am not so concerned with proving myself as I used to be.
If we who support the OWS movement get our way, the large financial institutions will be dismantled, and we will have to downsize our own ways of life considerablt. We will have to accept greater equality with those who are less financially secure. I am not sure how many tenured anthropologists will be happy to do this. Some are trapped in debt or paying for their children’s college educations. They cannot retire, exhausted from work though they may be. Some just like to be well off. A few may even be in the top 1%.
Those of us who choose to be activists now, who choose to help dismantle the very institutions in which a big part of our savings is invested, will always be on the margins, I think. If we were in the mainstream, after all, we would have nothing to protest.
Nevertheless, there will always be some more-or-less mainstream anthropologists who will risk their comfort for the sake of doing what they feel is right. Demonstrating in the parks and on the streets is a good first step, but it is only just that. The next step, and the next, and the next after that will have to be more definitive and more risky. Terrible, scary problems are facing humanity now. We all know this. As anthropologists, we should be well placed to find and implement genuine solutions. It can’t just be one person who has a brilliant idea. It has to be many people working together.
Thankyou for your comment, Erik. Even in Florida, where economic trouble is intense and “solidarity” with the working class is absolutely necessary (considering Rick Scott’s two-pronged liberal arts and union-busting agenda) the lack of involvement, interest, and outright disdain for the Occupy movement has left me reeling.
In classrooms, on the street, or in the office, there seems to be little support or interest in the movement, with the only public academic commentary being that someone ought to be doing something differently. Or that because the Occupy movement can’t speak perfectly for everyone, it shouldn’t speak for anyone. It astounds me how many in my community overtly trust the media coverage of Occupy, rather than going out and investigating (not to mention standing with) these vibrant, powerful protestors.
The reason our high-brow protests behind academic walls, and between journal covers, are tolerated by the State (compared to the Occupy Movement) is because the Academy has increasingly become a dangerous, but enchanting playground of intellectual dissidents. It is dangerous because the elitism stemming from studying movements has led many to believe that criticizing movements is an intellectual prerogative, and thus they support the powers our profession has historically resisted.
How soon we forget our passions and our past. How soon we let the monsters in our own countries loose, while we sit on our armchairs and write the next paper on State Violence and Dissidence in A Distant Land. I have waited my entire life for a movement where the call for the abolition of Colombus Day by indigenous groups is met with cheers from thousands. I have waited for a movement where people cast aside the pittance they have been assigned, and stand with others, providing the image of a wall of bodies—the final barrier, the final obstacle to the State.
I am proud to say that, and proud of the brave few Anthropologists who have chosen to stand with the Occupiers.
Alissa M Jordan
University of Florida
Gainesville, Florida
Alissa,
Thank you for your warm and passionate reply. Your empathy and perspective are both reassuring and moving.
Eric J. Montgomery
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[...] Robert R. Sauders is an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Department of Geography and Anthropology and the Department of History at Eastern Washington University. His ongoing research examines the role of international activism in ethno-territorial conflicts. Currently, Robert is analyzing graffiti on the Israeli Separation Barrier as a means of understanding how international activism influences and, at times, alters the communication and narration of popular resistance in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This entry was posted in Columnist, Contributing Editors and Columnists. Bookmark the permalink. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL. « Why International Activism? Montréalology 101 » [...]