1st October 2005

Dear friends !

Welcome to an experiment in creating open spaces for discussion and debate, first about the World Social Forum and its culture of politics and then towards discussing institutions and processes more generally !

Many people, in all kinds of institutions and processes - students and researchers, movement activists and members of NGOs, workers and trade unionists, political activists, academics, professionals, and others - those who are concerned about democracy and wider participation, would like spaces that are 'open'. In this respect, the Internet carries with it a promise of such openness: open source, open access, wikipedia, creative commons, countless wikis, blogs, discussion forums, peer-to-peer networking, ongoing conflicts over file sharing, etc. bear testimony to that. The culture of such practices, in many a case, spills over from the world of bits to the world of flesh and blood. It only seems appropriate then (at least to those of us talking of openness, participation, democracy) that we all participate in the process of creating and fostering more such spaces.

This announcement tells you about a new initiative, CACIM (India Institute for Critical Action : Centre in Movement), about some of its activities over the next while, and specifically about something that is happening right now, over these next 2-3 weeks, the Chennai Open Space Action. This action, like most of CACIM's activities, is about promoting and defending open space, and towards pushing the boundaries of existing spaces and maybe even opening new spaces.

We hope, by this announcement, to also be able to reach out to and to perhaps also engage even wider sections of people -- people who may not be involvedwith the WSF or movements as such but who are nevertheless concerned about the state of the world and want to contribute or take part in debates about what is happening and how things take shape. From CACIM, our approach will at all times be one of critical engagement, and we invite you to join us in this.


1. The Chennai Open Space Action

In defence of open space!

Arguably, one of the major contributions of the phenomenon called the 'World Social Forum' (WSF) is the idea of the Forum as an 'open space' -- and by this, signalling a 'new form of politics'. The central idea in this formulation is that a 'space', rather than a party or movement or other organisation, allows for more and different forms of relations among political actors, while remaining open-ended with respect to outcomes. It is 'open' in that encounters among multiple subjects with diverse objectives can have transformative political effects that traditional forms of movements, parties, coalitions, and campaigns, with more uniform themes and goals, exclude -- almost by definition. 'Open space' is not an alternative to these other modes of organisation -- but it is, for achieving democratic and emancipatory change, essential as a complement.

While the jury is still out both as to just how open the World Social Forum is, and also as to how effective this concept and approach is in terms of creating more democratic and emancipatory ways of conducting and understanding politics and organisation, there seems little doubt that especially in today's world of rising fundamentalism and growing imperialism, at many levels and in many contexts, the essential idea of an 'open space' is appealing. It is a valuable concept, one that is worth defending and promoting. In many senses, it can be compared to the concepts of civil liberty and democratic right.

We at CACIM therefore believe it is necessary, in today's juncture in world politics, to at all times practise, promote, and defend the concept of open space, to engage in a process of constantly opening spaces, and also to critically examine and interrogate the concept.

The Chennai Action:

A major WSF India meeting is to be held in Chennai, India, between October 6-8 2005. At one level, the meeting's organisers have billed this as stocktaking after organising the WSF world meeting in Mumbai in January 2004, and at another, as preparation for the Karachi edition of the polycentric World Social Forum that is scheduled to place in late January 2006.

It is worth noting that one of the sessions of the Chennai meeting is titled 'WSF as an Open Space -- Confronting globalization or dissipating dissent'.
Clearly, the concept of 'open space' is directly on the WSF official agenda, perhaps as a consequence of the WSF being widely criticised for saying it is open but not, perhaps being as open as it claims, in reality. But the time allotted for this crucial issue is just one hour -- which includes two presentations and only 20 minutes discussion time. And this is within a whole day of sessions, most of which is occupied by pre-selected speakers. There is clearly not enough time in general for debate and discussion, let alone on this vital issue, and it is therefore even more pertinent that this theme gets widely and intensively discussed prior to, during, and after the Chennai meeting.

Towards this end, we would like to invite you to:
1) Subscribe to a mailing list chennai-wsfindia-2005 at openspaceforum.net,
come in with YOUR views and reports, and exchange thoughts with others.
You can do this at:

 http://www.openspaceforum.net/mailman/listinfo/chennai-wsfindia-2005_openspaceforum.net

This listserve has been created for discussions before the Chennai meeting, live reports and reflections from the Chennai meeting, and beyond this, critical engagement with the WSF and with WSF processes

2) Visit the webspace  http://www.openspaceforum.net and use that space to engage with the concept and idea of 'open space', particularly in the context of the WSF. This webspace offers several tools to facilitate this engagement.

CACIM now invites all those who are going to the Chennai meeting, or who cannot go but are interested in it, and indeed all those who are

interested in what is happening with and in the Forum, in India and globally, to participate in creating a space -- multiple spaces - for debate and discussion on the meeting and on the WSF -- and anything else that YOU think is related.

Options for participating

Over the last several months, we have come to understand that in the domain of internet-based technologies, most people are most comfortable and attuned with email. This has led us to privilege the "chennai-wsfindia-2005 at openspaceforum.net" listserve. However, for those who would like to be venture beyond email, on the  http://www.openspaceforum.net webspace, we also provide:

1. BLOG SPACE: OpenSpaceForum provides blog space for people to "report" from the Chennai event, and also provides individuals the option of creating your own blog rather than writing onto the "common" blog. Of course, you need not restrict your blogging to the Chennai event, but are welcome to engage with other related issues.

2. UPLOADING YOUR OWN CONTENT: OpenSpaceForum also provides individuals the option to upload your own content such as photos, documents, etc onto the site -- which will then be available worldwide.

3. ARTICLE SUBMISSION: While you could submit documents (Word, PDF, etc), we also encourage you to use the article-submission feature to make some of these documents accessible as plain text. Please also feel free to comment on existing articles.

4. CREATING WIKI PAGES: You are also welcome to create new wiki pages, which are then open to being edited by others. You are also welcome to edit existing wiki pages, where it is possible to do so.

5. HELP FOR THOSE LESS FAMILIAR: The webspace also gives Help to those less familiar with blogging and editing wiki pages, and in case you would like to use this opportunity to do this.

Come and join us! Please only note that we are attempting this experiment at somewhat short notice, and there are bound to be rough edges. We are working to make all the above tools available and usable without too much effort. So please try and overlook the smaller problems you may find with all this. We welcome your feedback at "cacim AT cacim DOT net".

Our idea is also to do a collective and participative post-facto evaluation of this project, with a view to perhaps repeating this experiment, with greater preparation, for and at the polycentric Karachi Forum in January 2006. So you will be hearing more from us, in due course.

Join us in any or all of this !

2. About Open Space Forum

Open Space Forum was set up in 2004, in part, in connection with the work of the EIOS Collective, a new worldwide network of scholar-activists involved in or concerned with movement. The goal of this initiative is to explore and advance thinking and action involving new and more democratic ways of conducting and understanding politics and organisation within movements, institutions, and related political processes.

For more information, visit  http://www.openspaceforum.net

This webspace is being reorganized, with relevant content being uploaded over the next couple of months. The proposed structure is listed below. We welcome you to contribute to this process. This is very much still an experiment-in-progress.

Proposed Content on OpenSpaceForum:  http://www.openspaceforum.net

3. About CACIM

[ CACIM is just in the process of forming. The following is therefore taken from a draft document, and should be seen as being only work-in-progress.]


CACIM -- the India Institute for Critical Action : Centre in Movement -- proposes to be a hub within transnational networks among people and organisations located in different parts of the world. Its goal is to support and encourage activists, students, researchers, professionals, artistes, and thinkers, young and more mature, and both those belonging to the so-called 'civil' and also those excluded from this, belonging to the popular and 'incivil' worlds, who are involved in different ways with 'movement', in their individual work and also to network and work together.

CACIM has grown out of Critical Action (CA), an experiment since about 2001 in informal, voluntary association between individuals based in different parts of India and other countries focusing on the critical study of, reflection and exchange on, and engagement in emerging social and political movement.

[ CACIM webspace -  http://www.cacim.net - under construction ]

CACIM is registered in India as a non-profit company. But, although based in one country, it will be transnationalist, 'global', and open in spirit and concern. At another level, our goal will be to develop and to conduct CACIM as a loose, flexible, responsive, and lightweight organisation, reflecting and manifesting its principles.
The principles that underlie CACIM's work are criticality, transnationalism and transcommunality, and engagement -- and at all times, and in many ways, a focus on movement.

We hope to articulate criticality through a focus on critical reflection and thought, and a spirit of self-reflexivity; critical action; and critical pedagogy. CACIM's work will also be based on and informed by the interrelated principles of voluntarism, mutual aid, and solidarity.

One aim and aspect of the application of CACIM's principles will be with respect to the question of the social and political dimensions of resource mobilisation for public work. We propose to open public debate in this critical area, and hope to be able to progressively define principles that can inform our own work and public work more generally. We plan here to take full advantage of the rich tradition in India of debate and controversy in this area.

Over the next period, CACIM expects to have three main areas of activity: Strategies and Cultures of 'Movement', Information Culture Technology, and Building Bridges.

Forthcoming activities:
Publication and launch of the second and third volumes of the 'Are Other Worlds Possible?' series, tentatively titled 'Interrogating Empires and Imagining Alternatives'.

Mid 2006:

EIOS3 -- the third EIOS meeting, a ten-day encounter of the 'Explorations in/of Open Space' project (EIOS) focusing on open space and civil movement; to be organised by CACIM near New Delhi. The four interrelated meetings and the preparatory process proposed will significantly take forward the EIOS process, a major exercise in critical scholar-activism and global networking that has taken shape over the past year around the concept of 'open space'.

If you are interested in knowing more about CACIM, write to us at "info AT cacim DOT net"


We hope you now have enough information on us, and look forward to your joining us -- right now on  http://www.openspaceforum.net and chennai-wsfindia-2005 at openspaceforum.net now, and soon also on  http://www.cacim.net

With warm greetings, in peace and in solidarity - Members of CACIM.

CACIM -- India Institute for Critical Action : Centre in Movement
A-3 Defence Colony, New Delhi 110 024, India
Ph : +91-11/5155 1521, 2433 2451
Eml: info AT cacim DOT net
Web:  http://www.cacim.net