Eleventh Global Studies Conference

Abstract

From Wallerstein’s (1974) “world-economy” concept to the more recent concept of “Empire” by Hardt and Negri (2000), social theory has conceived the present world as a system of neoliberal capitalist domination on a global scale, involving exploitation of man and nature by economic elites in connivance with political elites. The exploitation reaches nowadays alarming self-destructive extremes, expressed by climate change (N. Klein, 2014), normalization of job insecurity and “precariat” (G. Standing, 2011), policies of austerity (J. Stiglitz, 2002), while increasing social inequality as never before in human history (T. Piketty, 2014). More than an ideology or a policy, behind this form of domination of capitalism, there is a technology of production of subjectivity, the “homo economicus” that is self-governed by criteria of competitiveness and individual utility. Michel Foucault calls “neoliberal governmentality” this form of conduct in the global capitalist Empire. Global capitalist domination has met with resistance from global civil society in the form of alter-globalist movements. However, given that the action of individuals and groups is still largely local, we also find within states sociopolitical movements opposed to the global capitalist system. Recently, in Spain the Catalan independence movement has brought about an effervescence of anti-hegemonic social mobilizations, practices and ideals, beyond its claim for a referendum of self-determination for the region of Catalonia. We will present the rise within it of the left-wing political party Candidatura d’Unitat Popular (Popular Unity Candidacy, CUP) since 2012. CUP has been key at the parliamentary level in the momentum of the movement until the referendum of October 1, 2017, but also at the social and political level in order to endow it with a counter-hegemonic dimension, against the neoliberal political and economic elites. We will analyze its sociopolitical trajectory, taking into account its difficulties and contradictions. We will especially emphasize its creation of new forms of counter-hegemonic subjectivity based in municipalism, self-organization, assemblies and social activism, under ideals of anti-capitalism, feminism and ecology, and how they confront the individualistic logics of neoliberalism that suppose the rupture of social and ecological links.