Voices of the World

Presentation

1. Objectives
Voices of the World is an important part of the project. It seeks to substantiate the epistemological stance that there are many possible knowledges in the world, and that scientific knowledge is only one amongst them. These nonscientific knowledges are often designated as alternative knowledges, which is a problematic designation since the concept of "alternative" suggests opposition to the norm, the norm supposedly being in this case scientific knowledge. But the truth is that almost the entire life of most of the world's population is ruled by nonscientific practical knowledges; if this is the "norm," then scientific knowledge would have to be considered "alternative." The aim of Voices of the World is to include and represent, in this project, specific manifestations of concrete, practical, common knowledges, that is to say, knowledges that are connected with the social practices we designate as practices of social emancipation. If it were necessary to give them a general name, the best choice would probably be "emancipatory common sense." To have access to knowledges of this kind is certainly one of the objectives of this project. But that objective must be precisely defined and subjected to a permanent epistemological vigilance. Otherwise, one may fall into the temptation of imperial epistemology, that is, of gaining access to such knowledge only to turn it into the raw material of scientific knowledge.

Here, the objective is clearly different. The starting point is that scientific knowledge is incomplete and cannot be made complete by resorting only to its own instruments. Since this idea applies to all forms of knowledge, through Voices of the World we aim to encourage a "diatopical hermeneutics." That is to say, we seek to encourage as egalitarian a dialogue as possible among different forms of knowledge, hoping that such a dialogue may be useful for the various holders of different knowledges as they go about pursuing their respective goals. To the extent that researchers and activists converge in their goal of promoting the reinvention of social emancipation, these different forms of knowledge will eventually contribute towards hybrid forms of emancipatory knowledge.

Voices of the World seeks to make practical knowledges accessible in order to confront them with other knowledges produced by the project- in most cases from within the academic field-about movements, organizations, and social initiatives. The confrontation between these different kinds of knowledge may contribute significantly to deepening the discussion on the new paths of social emancipation.

2. About the interviewees
The interviewees are activists or leaders of movements, organizations, and social initiatives that are analyzed in the project. The difficulty found in defining the profile of the interviewees should itself be the object of a sociological analysis. It is the result of the definitive failure (for some) or the present lack of credibility (for others) of the great maps of social emancipation, such as national liberation, socialism, and communism. These maps having been set side, whether definitively or temporarily, the great historical agents of social emancipation have now disappeared: the great leaders of national liberation movements, of communist and other parties, and workers' or worker-peasants' movements. Twenty years ago they might have been the potential interviewees. But twenty years ago one would perhaps not be ready to think, as one does today, of the reciprocal incompleteness of all knowledges. Perhaps then the interview would be unthinkable; either because one would consider scientific knowledge the only valid one, in which case the interview would not be necessary; or because one would consider the leaders' knowledge the only valid one, in which case they would not have to be questioned, but simply followed.

We are now in a time of small maps and guides. While considerably augmenting the stock of potential interviewees, this fact has also rendered the criteria of selection far more ambiguous. We have sought to choose activists or leaders of progressive causes, movements, initiatives, and organizations engaged in resistance against oppression and fighting for a more just society and a better collective life; leaders or activists who have been successful in their struggles and have earned from them a practical experience and knowledge that they were willing to share with us. The important thing is that they hold a practical knowledge which, although drawn from very concrete experiences and struggles, may be useful for other activists engaged in other struggles elsewhere, as well as for social scientists genuinely interested in confronting different knowledges.

3. On methodologies
Voices of the World is not an oral history project. It is based on long, semistructured interviews, that is to say, on a set, or check list, of open questions, which the interviewer posed according to the dynamics of the interview, and which functioned mainly to invite the free expression of the interviewees' ideas.

Whenever possible, we have sought to obtain an audio or even audiovisual record of the interview, unless this was considered to be intrusive and would have interfered with the course of the interviewing. Whenever possible, photographs were taken of the interviewee and of the site and environment in which the interview took place.

The interviews were carried out using the language with which the interviewee was most at ease. The transcription into English and/or Portuguese was made taking into consideration the problems of obtaining an adequate "translation" of the narrated facts and situations.

The text of the interview is preceded by a small introduction to the interviewee. The transcript is followed by a brief text which we might call Exercise of Self-reflectivity, consisting of a short personal commentary by the interviewer on what most impressed, stirred, intrigued, or surprised him or her during the interview.

Theme Presentation

The research themes have been selected in view of their potential to promote counter-hegemonic globalization in the next decades. The following five themes have been selected (no order of precedence):

* Participatory Democracy v
* Alternative Production Systems v
* Emancipatory Multiculturalism, Justices and Citizenships v
* Biodiversity, Rival Knowledges and Intellectual Property Rights v
* New Labor Internationalism v

The research in the countries included in this Project will be developed in the ambit of these themes.

Participatory Democracy ^
Alongside the hegemonic model of democracy (liberal, representative democracy), other, subaltern models of democracy have always coexisted, no matter how marginalized or discredited. We live in paradoxical times: at the very moment of its most convincing triumphs across the globe, liberal democracy becomes less and less credible and convincing not only in the 'new frontier' countries but also in the countries where it has its deepest roots. The twin crises of representation and participation are the most visible symptoms of such deficit of credibility and, in the last instance, of legitimacy. On the other hand, local, regional, and national communities in different parts of the world are undertaking democratic experiments and initiatives, based on alternative models of democracy, in which the tension between capitalism and democracy comes alive anew and becomes a positive energy behind new, more comprehensive and more just social contracts, no matter how locally circumscribed they may be. In some countries, particularly in Africa, traditional forms of authority and government are being revisited to explore the possibility of their internal transformation and articulation with other forms of democratic rule.

Alternative Production Systems ^
Discussions about counter-hegemonic globalization tend to focus on social, political, and cultural initiatives, only rarely focusing on the economic ones, that is, on local/global initiatives consisting in non-capitalist production and distribution of goods and services, whether in rural or urban settings: cooperatives, mutualities, credit systems, farming of invaded land by landless peasants, water systems, fishing communities, ecological logging, etc. These initiatives are those in which local/global linkages are most difficult to establish, if for no other reason because they confront more directly the logic of global capitalism behind hegemonic globalization, not only at the level of production but also at the level of distribution. They often times survive by finding ways of accommodating to at least some hegemonic impositions.

Another important facet of alternative production systems is that they are never exclusively economic in nature. They mobilize social and cultural resources that make inter-thematic linkages a necessary condition of their success.

A market economy is of course possible and, within limits, even desirable. On the contrary, a market society is impossible and, if possible, would be morally repugnant, and indeed ungovernable. Nothing short of market fascism. Alternative production systems are one possible response to market fascism.

Emancipatory Multiculturalism, Justices, and Citizenships ^
The crisis of western modernity has shown that the failure of progressive projects concerning the improvement of the life chances and life conditions of subordinate groups both inside and outside the western world was in part due to lack of cultural legitimacy. This applies even to human rights movements since the universality of human rights cannot be taken for granted. The idea of human dignity can be formulated in different "languages". Rather than being suppressed in the name of postulated universalisms, such differences must be mutually intelligible through translation and diatopical hermeneutics.

Since modern nation-building was accomplished more often than not by smashing the cultural and national identity of minorities (and sometimes even majorities), the recognition of multiculturalism and of multinationhood carries with itself the aspiration to self-determination. The case of the indigenous peoples is paramount in this project. Even though all cultures are relative, relativism is wrong as a philosophical stance. It is therefore imperative to develop (transcultural?) criteria to distinguish emancipatory from retrogressive forms of multiculturalism or self-determination.

The aspiration for multiculturalism and self-determination often takes the social form of a struggle for justice and citizenship. It involves the claims for alternative forms of law and justice and for new regimes of citizenship. The plurality of legal orders, which has become more visible with the crisis of the nation-state, carries with itself, either implicitly or explicitly, the idea of multiple citizenships coexisting in the same geopolitical field and, often, the idea of the existence of first, second, and third class citizens. However, non-state legal orders may also be the embryo of non-state public spheres and the institutional base for self-determination, as in the case of indigenous justice. This project will concentrate on forms of justice - community, informal, local, popular justice - that are part and parcel of struggles or initiatives pertaining to any of the other three themes. For instance, community or popular justice as an integral component of participatory democracy initiatives; indigenous justice as an integral component of self-determination or the conservation of biodiverstiy.

Biodiversity, Rival Knowledges and Intellectual Property Rights ^
Due to the advancement of the last decades in the life sciences, biotechnology and microelectronics, biodiversity has become one of the most precious and looked after 'natural resources'. For biotechnology and pharmaceutical firms, biodiversity appears increasingly at the core of the most spectacular and thus profitable product developments in the years ahead. By and large, biodiversity occurs mainly in the so-called Third World and predominantly in territories historically owned or long occupied by indigenous peoples. While technologically advanced countries seek to extend intellectual property rights and patent law to biodiversity - there have already been attempts to patent human gene sequences - some peripheral countries, indigenous peoples groups and NGOs on their behalf are seeking to guarantee the conservation and reproduction of biodiversity by granting special protection status to the territories, ways of life, and traditional knowledges of indigenous and peasant communities. It is increasingly evident that the new cleavages between the North and the South will be centered around the question of access to biodiversity on a global scale.

Though all themes included in the project raise an epistemological issue, to the extent that they claim the validity of knowledges that have been discarded by hegemonic scientific knowledge, biodiversity is probably the topic in which the clash between rival knowledges is more evident and eventually more unequal and violent.

New Labor Internationalism ^
As is well-known, labor internationalism was one of the most blatantly unfulfilled predictions of the Communist Manifesto. Capital globalized itself, not the labor movement. The labor movement organized itself at the national level and, at least in the core countries, became increasingly dependent upon the Welfare State. It is true that in our century international links and organizations have kept alive the idea of labor internationalism but they became prey to the cold war and their fate followed the fate of the cold war.

In the post-cold-war period and as a response to the more aggressive bouts of hegemonic globalization, new as yet very precarious forms of labor internationalism have emerged: the debate on labor standards; exchanges, agreements or even institutional congregation among labor unions of different countries integrating the same economic regional bloc (NAFTA, European Union, Mercosul); articulation among struggles, claims, and demands of the different labor unions representing the workers working for the same multinational corporation in different countries, etc.

Even more frontally than alternative-production systems, the new labor internationalism confronts the logic of global capitalism on its own privileged ground: market economy. The success of the new labor internationalism is dependent upon the "extra-economic" linkages it will be able to build with the social initiatives and movements within the ambit of any of the other themes dealt with in this project.

None of these thematic initiatives taken separately will succeed in bringing about counter-hegemonic globalization. To be successful their emancipatory concerns must undergo translation and networking, expanding in evermore socially hybrid but politically focused movements. In a nutshell what is at stake in political terms at the beginning of the century is the reinvention of the state and of civil society in such a way that social fascism will vanish as a possible future. This is to be accomplished through the proliferation of local/global public spheres in which nation-states are important partners but not exclusive dispensers of either legitimacy or hegemony.