Researching global movements: practices, dialogues and ethics

Pleyers, Geoffrey [UCL]

Developing empirically-based analyses of transnational or global movements represents an even higher challenge for researchers who seek to understand social movements beyond organisations and “institutional–political reductionism”. How do we study the global dimensions and connections in movements rooted in experience, subjectivities and ephemeral collectives rather than organisations (McDonald, 2006)? How tangible are the international resonances among activists who favour personal forms of activism and prefigurative actions in daily life over building organisations and networks? Should we and can we “objectivise” these resonance and subjective experiences? What does “global movements” mean for approaches that consider social movements first and foremost as producers of meanings, knowledge and cosmovisions rather than transnational networks of organisations and globally connected events? How do locally-rooted movements on different continents contribute to a global struggle to redefine our relationship with nature, democracy, or the meaning of “a good life”? The challenges raised are practical, theoretical, methodological and epistemological. The following sections of this chapter successively discuss these challenges by proposing an approach built on four bases: multi-site research, transnational analytical tools, dialogues with local actors and researchers, and a personal commitment and ethic towards intercultural dialogue.