1. COMPONENTS OF THE MOVEMENT

The alterglobal movement consists of a variety of components involved in many differing initiatives that have been active for a decade in traditionally developed areas of the European Union, North America, Australia and Japan (Castells 1997; Wieviorka 2003), emerging countries in Asia, like India (Tambi 2004), and in Latin America, like Brazil (Glória Gohn 2003), but also less developed areas in the Latin America continent, like Chiapas in Mexico (Le Bot 1997), and areas of Africa afflicted by underdevelopment and war (Sall 2004). These are specific initiatives that take place at local and national levels, and are carried out alongside other initiatives of continental or global importance, that constitute the clearest stages in the construction of the movement. These initiatives are established on the one hand through the construction of experiences (Dubet 1994) that, as will be shown (Cfr. 2, 3), seek to enable culturally alternative ways of living, and, on the other hand, through demonstrations whose broad resonance functions as an explicit marker of the directions in which the alterglobal movements now progressing.
We can date the beginning of these new developments to the launch of mobilisations by the Zapatistas in Chiapas, with their initiatives in 1994 against the FTAA, the Free Trade Agreement of the Americas between Canada, Mexico and the United States, and the promotion in 1996 of the First Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and against Neo-liberalism. More significant initiatives of resistance only began develop a few years later, with the demonstrations in Seattle at the end of 1999 provoked by the actions of the WTO, World Trade Organization. Indeed, these demonstrations were followed by a lengthy series of initiatives in the first few years of the new millennium, including those in April 2000, in Washington during the summit of the World Bank and the IMF, International Monetary Fund; in January 2001 in Porto Alegre where the first of the annual meetings of the WSF, World Social Forum, was held; in April in Quebec City where the 34 heads of state of the Americas within the FTAA, held a hemispheric meeting; in July, in Genoa for the G8 meeting; in January 2002 in New York for the WEF, World Economic Forum, and in February 2003 for the global demonstration for peace.
Thus the movement has developed by addressing questions of a cultural, economic, social and political order, that it links to the spread of neo-liberalism through current forms of globalisation, and which it combines, especially after the tensions and military operations that followed the terrorist attack on 11th September 2001 on the United States, with the pursuit of new international relations that work towards peace. In addressing these questions, the movement acts via a variety of initiatives that may touch on international issues directly or may interest the accomplishment of locally, nationally or generally focused activities. The first of these components arises from the subjective involvement (Touraine 1992) of its members in the definition of corporeal expression, in the creation of languages, in the valorisation of culture, in the formulation of themes for mobilisation, in the construction of modalities of behaviour and relationship, and in the activation of alternative channels of communication to prevailing cultural visions and dominant practices. This type of subjective involvement entails the achievement of personal investment in the movement through the construction of a unique experience, that is even distinct from that of others with whom an individual might collaborate when organising initiatives. It is a subjective involvement that includes initiatives such as Critical Mass, through which individuals can strengthen their personal investment in environmental campaigns. A further example is the involvement that occurs in initiatives which make use of corporeal expression, and discursive and behavioral creativity, such as that the experiences lived by those who participated in Reclaim the Street (McDonald 2003). It is an individual, subjective involvement that, however, is defined by combining cultural with political radicalism, as occurs in British Direct Actioncampaigns (McDonald 2003) and in continental Europe, in the Centri sociali and the Disobbedienti groups, organisations that are active principally in Italy.
In some contexts, this subjective involvement also becomes group involvement, as when in Chiapas it overlaps with the defence and the affirmation of identity by indigenous peoples (Castells 1997; Le Bot 1997). In yet other contexts, to give a further example, such as West Africa, individuals and groups assert their subjective specificity via objectives to be achieved through campaigns for human rights. These objectives would be achieved through the construction of social structures capable of dealing with community and ethnic closure, as well as the increasing implosion of cultural traditions and social networks, connected with lack of development (Sall 2004). In this way, subjective affirmation through the construction of alternative globalisation initiatives becomes part of various different expressions of an undertaking that often takes shape by criticising, predicting and practising alternatives to social, economic, but also political aspects of the dominant culture. This is one reason why these same initiatives are sometimes developed by connecting the pursuit of alternative cultural approaches with political actions, thus explicitly highlighting the innovative character of these actions. Such innovation can be identified in the initiatives of the Zapatistas, mentioned earlier, who combine activities that affirm subjective indigenous identity with social and economic demands supported by radical political campaigns carried out in a democratic context, thus emphasising the difference between these actions and those of the Latin American guerillas in seizing power (Le Bot 1997; 2004). This differentiation between types of action can in some contexts also be identified in relation to practices of the extreme left, such as in the experiences of the Disobbedienti in Europe. Indeed, this group willingly distances itself from the traditions of the extreme left, positioning itself on other grounds than those of the revolutionary demolition of the state and seizure of power. However, this distancing is not absolute. The new radicalism of the Disobbedienti does in fact make use of conceptual models of the traditional extreme left, whose fundamental characteristics, defined in Italy in the 1970s, are repurposed within interpretative frameworks such as Foucaultian theory, and thus in terms appropriate to the new context of alternative globalisation (Cfr. Negri, Hardt 2000). Yet this radicalism also strives to define its own pathway and experiences, as in the case of the Zapatistas, who seek to forge and maintain a tension between social life and political power. The group denounces the inadequacies of this power and challenges its influence through acts of disobedience, either civil or social, which often hover between decisive symbolic opposition to the expression of dominant forces and behavior that is only subtly distinguishable from violence. These latter acts that verge on violence are almost always criticised by other factions within the movement, who consider them to be expressions of a political radicalism that they do not support. They are acts that the Disobbedienti in turn intend to keep separate from acts of extreme violence that have occurred during several of the movement’s mobilisations, and which are criticised by most of those within the alternative globalisation movement, especially after the events of Genoa 2002 (Andretta et. al. 2003).
The first component of the alterglobal movements thus shaped by individuals and groups who develop a variety of different initiatives, and whose experiences are characterised by the pursuit of cultural perspectives that are radically at odds with prevailing norms. It is from these alternative cultural perspectives that many of these initiatives articulate social and economic questions to be tackled, sometimes through activities that  call for radical political upheaval. This type of radicalism is not comparable with previous forms of revolutionary political action. Indeed, such positions are innovative in that they combine the pursuit of cultural alternatives, activities committed to culturally specific social and economic issues and political initiatives that seek to support these activities, even through radical mobilisations and acts that are not always clearly distinguishable from violence. These are initiatives that do not seek to seize political power and overwhelm social opponents, even when they seem to embody radical implications.
The second constitutive component of the movement is formed by NGOs and other organisations that, like the groups of the first component, are involved in high profile actions including campaigns for peace and actions in support of populations that are suffer from particular difficulties, mainly in less developed areas—such as peoples in Africa that are threatened by famine and military strife—but also in any other country—such as groups of immigrants in the European Union. These initiatives are largely realised through individual involvement that is expressed via attempts at affirmation, through commitment to activities such as international cooperatives and secular or religious voluntary organisations, communities capable of defining alternative practices to those linked with cultural perspectives that are predominant in social and economic fields and in international relations.
  Individuals involved in the secular voluntary service in Italy are experiencing this type of collaboration working to support immigrants, especially members of ARCI—Associazione ricreativa culturale italiana—a foundation with leftist roots that is historically linked to the founding of several movements; the environmental movement, the women’s movement and the movement for gay rights, as well as alternative globalisation. In an international context, we might consider the experience of members of humanitarian NGOs like Emergency, that originated culturally in the new European left of the last decades of the twentieth century, which has been active in providing health services in troubled areas of the world. Again looking at the international picture, we might think if the experiences of NGO workers active in less developed areas. These are organisations whose cultural origins can be found in funded initiatives dating from the second half of the last century, especially from North America and Western Europe, that intervened to protect human rights and to support less developed areas (Keck, Sikkink 1998; Pollack 2001).
  Other examples of interventions in economic and social issues at international level can be attributed on the one hand to organisations that realise concrete tasks, like those performed by fair trade organisations, and, on the other hand, to members of groups that organise campaigns that promote alternative visions of production and consumption (Klein 2000). To these examples of intervention must also be added the campaign promoted on an international level in 1998 by the French association Attac—the Association for the Taxation of financial Transactions for the Aid of Citizens—which held great significance in the initial phases of the movement’s growth. This was an initiative to implement a tax on financial transactions, the proceeds of which were destined for less developed countries. Finally, there are experiences related to issues of peace, such as those of members of secular organisations, but also of other alternative globalisation collectives with religious foundations, that are allied with groups that have confessional functions, such as Pax Christi that is linked to the Catholic church.
The second constitutive part of the alterglobal movements thus characterised largely by individual involvement in the construction of specific practices, that are culturally defined and differentiated, and carried out in order to intervene in concrete ways on social, economic and political relations which affect populations that are particularly subject to the consequences of current forms of globalisation. These practices are also intended to promote international relations that support peaceful interaction between states and regions of the world. As such, these practices are part of the movement for alternative globalisation that acts in relation to many issues, at a variety of global levels, such as the World Social Forum meetings and its constitutive continental groups. Like other activities performed by the alternative gloalisation movement, these practices seek also to intervene at various levels of the political system to encourage—without setting specific goals—decisions favorable to the objectives of alternative globalisation and the increase of its institutional bases.
The first component, through its experiences of creative expression, and the second, with its activities of direct intervention are formed through the search for culturally defined practices that offer alternatives to the cultural and economic structures of current forms of globalisation. To these components can be added two others, that, as implied previously, play an important part in the construction of the alternative globalisation movement, where they meet and bring together different questions. One focuses on issues raised by the advent of postindustrial society (Bell, 1973) and the other on labour issues relating to rural contexts, industry and services during the industrial era.
Indeed, the third component of the movement is composed of groups, such as environmental organisations and women’s groups, that were founded in the 1960s and 1970s, when the new social movements were first in evidence (Touraine 1993). Members of these organisations come to the movement both individually and in groups, bringing their personal experience and locating their actions in the broader context of alternative globalisation initiatives. In this way, environmental campaigners, such as members of Greenpeace, emphasise the importance of environmental issues for global affairs (Farro, Vaillancourt 2001). The same phenomenon occurs when issues such as the protection and affirmation of female specificity are linked to alternative globalisation strategies, by initiatives like the Women’s Global March. Environmentalists and Feminists thus relocate their individual subjective affirmation in the cultural context of practices that seek to redefine more general approaches to the significance of economic, social and political questions in contemporary society. They also unite their own political initiatives with those of other components of the alterglobal movements that seek to intervene at various institutional levels to obtain political decisions that favour the development of action, but which also increase their authority, in order to extend the reaches of democracy itself.
The fourth component consists of, on the one hand, groups of labourers and other agricultural workers, and, on the other, trade union organisations comprised mainly of industrial and service sector employees who come together in the alternative globalisation movement, to profile the significance of labour issues in the context of a globalisation dominated by neo-liberal economics.
The commitment of the alterglobal movements to national and international agricultural organisations is apparent in this component. For example at an international level, one active collective is Via Campesina, founded in 1993, which incorporates several local and national groups from different continents, with a membership at the beginning of the new millennium of over 50 million. The initiatives carried out by this collective take place through composite activities, that work to combat hunger and malnutrition; to support the agrarian reform against large landholders, and to achieve a real freedom of exchange as opposed to the protectionism in United States and EU agricultural practice; to develop alternative, environmentally sustainable agricultural practices and alternatives to genetic modification. Initiatives are carried out at national and global levels simultaneously, and address a broad spectrum of issues: some important examples include the Brazilian group MST, Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem-terra, which is directly involved in agricultural reform, and the French Union Confédération Paysanne, that combines traditional agricultural demands with initiatives that seek to affirm environmentally sustainable forms of cultivation (Marcon, Pianta 2002).
Within the alternative globalisation movement, industrial and service sector unions are coming together on labour issues—issues that have been recognised as relevant to other sectors of the movement, and which led American union members, such as dock workers and those employed in the steel industry, who belong to AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Labour Congress of Industrial Organization (Coburn 2003) to play an active part in the previously mentioned demonstrations in Seattle in 1999. Labour issues have led to increased cooperation between many different unions from various regions of the world, in alternative globalisation initiatives that also have more general application, for example the annual meetings of the World Social Forum. The first two of these meetings, held in Porto Alegre in Brazil, were supported and organised principally by the Brazilian union CUT, Central Única dos Trabalhadores (da Glória Gohn 2003: 53/88). However, although many different unions may come together this does not imply a homogeneity of perspective across those within the alternative globalisation movement. Rather, these organisations also express their often relatively distinct positions, as for example in the European context we see CGIL, Confederazione Generale Italiana del Lavoro, that assumes a reformist position, while SUD, Solidarité Unité Démocratie, one of the active French trade unions is linked to the radical left.

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