Book Review: Vahabzadeh, Articulated Experiences

Peyman Vahabzadeh
Articulated Experiences: Toward a Radical Phenomenology of Contemporary Social Movements
State University of New York Press, 2003, 223 pp.
$US 21.95 paperback (0-7914-5620-X) $US 65.50 hardcover (0-7914-5619-6)

In this ambitious book, Peyman Vahabzadeh sets himself the task of pushing the theorization of the 'new social movements' [NSMs] beyond sociology, that is, beyond a metaphysical reliance upon ultimate frames of reference. He is aided in this effort by the work of postmarxist theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, whose Hegemony and Socialist Strategy is widely acknowledged for its innovative application of poststructuralist concepts to the study of social change in postmodern liberal polities. But the strongest influence on this text is the radical phenomenology of Reiner Schürmann, a continental philosopher and interpreter of Heidegger. True to its Heideggerian inspirations, Vahabzadeh's text is deconstructive in the strict sense of the term: it sets out to renovate the tradition of social movements theory by way of a careful critique of its grounding assumptions.

On my reading Vahabzadeh generally succeeds in this task. First he establishes that the approaches of NSM theorists such as Touraine and Melucci can be seen as partaking of a general tendency in the social sciences towards 'seeking representations of some presupposed, concealed fundamentals' (35). That is, they fail to account for the endless play of identification and therefore fall into an essentialist conception of identity. As a corrective to the approach of the sociologists, Vahabzadeh offers Laclau and Mouffe's deconstructive theory of hegemony, which manages to avoid grounding itself in ultimate referentiality. However, Vahabzadeh argues that Laclau and Mouffe's work suffers from a lack of attention to the experiential aspects of articulation. This is where Schürmann and radical phenomenology are brought in, to 'rework' the concept of experience in a 'discursive, anti-humanistic way' (80-1). The concept of 'epoch' is crucial here. An epoch makes certain experiences available for articulation; it highlights certain possibilities of being and becoming and hides others. Using the concept of epoch Vahabzadeh offers an answer to the question of what is 'new' about the new social movements: emerging out of the postmodern condition, they proceed without a telos, without a utopian goal such as the classless society or the greatest happiness for the greatest number. They create new possibilities for articulation of radical identities, as exemplified by the solidarity politics of the EZLN (Marcos is gay in San Francisco, a farmer in Karnataka …).

While the discussion of NSM theory is heavily laden with specialist concepts and proceeds primarily at an abstract level, it does pay off in a series of political insights into postmarxist and liberal theory and practice. Vahabzadeh notes, as few have done, that while Laclau and Mouffe operate deconstructively within the marxist tradition, their theory of hegemony 'does not subvert the modern idea of hegemonic governance as such' (154). That is, although Laclau and Mouffe rightly observe that the NSMs moved beyond the modernist left in abandoning the revolutionary quest for the violent seizure of state power, they do not fully acknowledge that many of these movements remain within the horizon of modern universality by presenting demands to the currently constituted state apparatus. That is, they partake of the liberal paradigm of recognition of rights, leading to greater integration within the system of capitalist nation-states. Vahabzadeh notes that groups like the Zapatistas are operating non-hegemonically, neither seeking state power themselves nor asking the state for gifts, and thus their practices cannot be understood within either postmarxist or liberal theory.

What, then is the alternative? For many of us it is and has been anarchism, which since the early 1990s has been undergoing a world-wide rejuvenation in both theory and practice. Many of the most compelling of today's radical activist tactics and modes of organization are implicitly or explicitly anarchist in orientation, and a fruitful interaction between anarchist and post-structuralist theory is well underway. Vahabzadeh seems to be aware of these trends as he invokes Schürmann's concept of 'anarchic praxis' (149) to delineate the possibility of a non-hegemonic political practice. Interesting avenues are opened up by this analysis, but it remains abstract, in that it fails to make any contact with existing traditions of anarchist theory and practice. Rather, it seems that we are to read the term 'anarchic' primarily in a philosophical sense, as descriptive of that which is opposed to arche, prinicipial and rule-based modes of being and becoming. For Schürmann, and apparently for Vahabzadeh, anarchy appears as a wild force that 'abandons all ultimate standards' (149) and is 'free from founding inception and normative ends' (158). This is something quite different from anarchism as a political ideology, most strains of which are guided by principles such as mutual aid, solidarity, and affinity, to name just a few. Indeed, the way in which the term 'anarchic' is deployed here resonates most profoundly with what many consider to be the least progressive forms of anarchism, i.e. the lifestyler and dropout subcultures. So, while there is an interesting intuition at work in this text, it seems to me that it cannot be adequately developed without paying more attention to the theory and practice of actually existing anarchism. Reiner Schürmann is not the first person to take a position against both marxism and liberalism, and I would have appreciated some discussion of how one might read his concepts in relation to others who have explored this territory in the past.

A similar problem exists with the relation of the text to contemporary social movements. First, very few social movements are actually mentioned, other than the Zapatistas and gay liberation, and very little analysis of their strategies, tactics, alliances, and theoretical positionings is offered. (Would any such discussion be metaphysical and partake of the positivity of the social? As activists, are we to cease talking about the worlds we want to change and how we want to change them?) Second, the contemporary or current state of radical social movements is not addressed at all. Perhaps this is a result of the long time-lags associated with academic publishing, but the lack of any discussion of the anti-globalization movement, for example, has the unfortunate effect of making the forward-looking portion of the book seem dated rather than prescient. In the early 90s it did indeed seem that new modes of activism based on non-hegemonic practices were on the horizon. But by 1999 it was apparent that they had not only arrived, but constituted the core of the new militancy that took the neoliberal police state by surprise in Seattle, Genoa, Prague, Quebec City, and so on. Reclaim the Streets, Independent Media Centre, Black Bloc, affinity groups, clusters, spokescouncils: these are the non-branded tactics that the newest social movements are deploying, and have been deploying for some years now.

Thus it would seem that while this is definitely an important book for academics interested in continental theory and social movements, it much more about how these movements were in the 1990s than it is for them as they are today. I would respectfully suggest that a little more sociology might be needed, in the sense of close attention to what political actors today are doing in our everyday (experiential?) contexts, if radical phenomenology is going to realize its potential as a theoretical praxis relevant to contemporary social movements.

Richard Day
Department of Sociology
Queen’s University
DAYR@post.queensu.ca

Richard Day has published articles on social and political theory in journals such as Philosophy and Social Criticism, Critical Horizons, and Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. His current research focuses on the logic of affinity in contemporary radical social movements, and he has a book forthcoming on this topic from Pluto Press.


	Canadian Journal of Sociology Online September - October 2003 Peyman Vahabzadeh Articulated Experiences: Toward a Radical Phenomenology of Contemporary Social Movements State University of New York Press, 2003, 223 pp. $US 21.95 paperback (0-7914-5620-X) $US 65.50 hardcover (0-7914-5619-6) In this ambitious book, Peyman Vahabzadeh sets himself the task of pushing the theorization of the 'new social movements' [NSMs] beyond sociology, that is, beyond a metaphysical reliance upon ultimate frames of reference. He is aided in this effort by the work of postmarxist theorists Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe, whose Hegemony and Socialist Strategy is widely acknowledged for its innovative application of poststructuralist concepts to the study of social change in postmodern liberal polities. But the strongest influence on this text is the radical phenomenology of Reiner Schürmann, a continental philosopher and interpreter of Heidegger. True to its Heideggerian inspirations, Vahabzadeh's text is deconstructive in the strict sense of the term: it sets out to renovate the tradition of social movements theory by way of a careful critique of its grounding assumptions. On my reading Vahabzadeh generally succeeds in this task. First he establishes that the approaches of NSM theorists such as Touraine and Melucci can be seen as partaking of a general tendency in the social sciences towards 'seeking representations of some presupposed, concealed fundamentals' (35). That is, they fail to account for the endless play of identification and therefore fall into an essentialist conception of identity. As a corrective to the approach of the sociologists, Vahabzadeh offers Laclau and Mouffe's deconstructive theory of hegemony, which manages to avoid grounding itself in ultimate referentiality. However, Vahabzadeh argues that Laclau and Mouffe's work suffers from a lack of attention to the experiential aspects of articulation. This is where Schürmann and radical phenomenology are brought in, to 'rework' the concept of experience in a 'discursive, anti-humanistic way' (80-1). The concept of 'epoch' is crucial here. An epoch makes certain experiences available for articulation; it highlights certain possibilities of being and becoming and hides others. Using the concept of epoch Vahabzadeh offers an answer to the question of what is 'new' about the new social movements: emerging out of the postmodern condition, they proceed without a telos, without a utopian goal such as the classless society or the greatest happiness for the greatest number. They create new possibilities for articulation of radical identities, as exemplified by the solidarity politics of the EZLN (Marcos is gay in San Francisco, a farmer in Karnataka …). While the discussion of NSM theory is heavily laden with specialist concepts and proceeds primarily at an abstract level, it does pay off in a series of political insights into postmarxist and liberal theory and practice. Vahabzadeh notes, as few have done, that while Laclau and Mouffe operate deconstructively within the marxist tradition, their theory of hegemony 'does not subvert the modern idea of hegemonic governance as such' (154). That is, although Laclau and Mouffe rightly observe that the NSMs moved beyond the modernist left in abandoning the revolutionary quest for the violent seizure of state power, they do not fully acknowledge that many of these movements remain within the horizon of modern universality by presenting demands to the currently constituted state apparatus. That is, they partake of the liberal paradigm of recognition of rights, leading to greater integration within the system of capitalist nation-states. Vahabzadeh notes that groups like the Zapatistas are operating non-hegemonically, neither seeking state power themselves nor asking the state for gifts, and thus their practices cannot be understood within either postmarxist or liberal theory. What, then is the alternative? For many of us it is and has been anarchism, which since the early 1990s has been undergoing a world-wide rejuvenation in both theory and practice. Many of the most compelling of today's radical activist tactics and modes of organization are implicitly or explicitly anarchist in orientation, and a fruitful interaction between anarchist and post-structuralist theory is well underway. Vahabzadeh seems to be aware of these trends as he invokes Schürmann's concept of 'anarchic praxis' (149) to delineate the possibility of a non-hegemonic political practice. Interesting avenues are opened up by this analysis, but it remains abstract, in that it fails to make any contact with existing traditions of anarchist theory and practice. Rather, it seems that we are to read the term 'anarchic' primarily in a philosophical sense, as descriptive of that which is opposed to arche, prinicipial and rule-based modes of being and becoming. For Schürmann, and apparently for Vahabzadeh, anarchy appears as a wild force that 'abandons all ultimate standards' (149) and is 'free from founding inception and normative ends' (158). This is something quite different from anarchism as a political ideology, most strains of which are guided by principles such as mutual aid, solidarity, and affinity, to name just a few. Indeed, the way in which the term 'anarchic' is deployed here resonates most profoundly with what many consider to be the least progressive forms of anarchism, i.e. the lifestyler and dropout subcultures. So, while there is an interesting intuition at work in this text, it seems to me that it cannot be adequately developed without paying more attention to the theory and practice of actually existing anarchism. Reiner Schürmann is not the first person to take a position against both marxism and liberalism, and I would have appreciated some discussion of how one might read his concepts in relation to others who have explored this territory in the past. A similar problem exists with the relation of the text to contemporary social movements. First, very few social movements are actually mentioned, other than the Zapatistas and gay liberation, and very little analysis of their strategies, tactics, alliances, and theoretical positionings is offered. (Would any such discussion be metaphysical and partake of the positivity of the social? As activists, are we to cease talking about the worlds we want to change and how we want to change them?) Second, the contemporary or current state of radical social movements is not addressed at all. Perhaps this is a result of the long time-lags associated with academic publishing, but the lack of any discussion of the anti-globalization movement, for example, has the unfortunate effect of making the forward-looking portion of the book seem dated rather than prescient. In the early 90s it did indeed seem that new modes of activism based on non-hegemonic practices were on the horizon. But by 1999 it was apparent that they had not only arrived, but constituted the core of the new militancy that took the neoliberal police state by surprise in Seattle, Genoa, Prague, Quebec City, and so on. Reclaim the Streets, Independent Media Centre, Black Bloc, affinity groups, clusters, spokescouncils: these are the non-branded tactics that the newest social movements are deploying, and have been deploying for some years now. Thus it would seem that while this is definitely an important book for academics interested in continental theory and social movements, it much more about how these movements were in the 1990s than it is for them as they are today. I would respectfully suggest that a little more sociology might be needed, in the sense of close attention to what political actors today are doing in our everyday (experiential?) contexts, if radical phenomenology is going to realize its potential as a theoretical praxis relevant to contemporary social movements. Richard Day Department of Sociology Queen’s University DAYR@post.queensu.ca Richard Day has published articles on social and political theory in journals such as Philosophy and Social Criticism, Critical Horizons, and Topia: Canadian Journal of Cultural Studies. His current research focuses on the logic of affinity in contemporary radical social movements, and he has a book forthcoming on this topic from Pluto Press. http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/cjscopy/reviews/articulated.html October 2003 © CJS Online Click here to download PDF file < Back to Current Table of Contents