In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

1 C H A P T E R 1 What Can New Social Movements Tell About Post-Modernity? How is it possible to account for the fact that in the heart of an epochal enclosure… certain practices are possible and even necessary, which are not possible in others?… How does it happen, in other words, that a domain of the possible and necessary is instituted, endures for a time, and then cedes under the effect of a mutation? Schürmann, “‘What Must I Do?’ at the End of Metaphysics”1 The purpose of this study is to examine whether “new social movements” correspond to the possibility of an epochal transformation. If the postmodern designates the questioning and rejection of foundational thought, and if the new movements, in contrast to the “older” social movements, generally involve nontotalizing, antifoundationalist praxis, then, the question is, can we speak of a certain relationship between the two? Specifically, can we speak of new social movements as movements proper of an imminent post-modern era? This is a noble question in that it requires from us a certain audacity in acknowledging such possibility. And if we welcome such possibility, almost all hitherto social movement theories turn out to be inevitably outmoded , because they tend to theorize new social movements within various foundationalist frameworks. It is precisely this theoretical predicament that informs the inquiry of this text. It necessitates a thorough investigation, in the light of radical phenomenology, of the possibility of whether these movements indicate a new constellation in theory and praxis, and therefore, attest to a possible radical shift, although it may still be in its embryonic stage, in the ways we, the mortals (who “have renounced all ultimate holds”2 ), act out our existence? 2 articulated experiences Thus, the entire project hinges on the question posed in the epigraph to this introductory chapter. Despite the fact—or perhaps precisely because of it—that the current work is a study of, and hopefully a contribution to, the theories about contemporary social movements, due to the nature of its orientation, it situates itself primarily within contemporary social and political thought. It is important to note, as one might expect, that the analysis offered in the following text prepares for a postmetaphysical mode of acting and thinking, which collapses all hitherto perceived philosophico-sociological relationships between theory and practice. As is well known, ever since Aristotle philosophy has effectively played the central role in securing the rational foundations to which the whole of action in a given era should conform. Since the advent and expansion of modernity, sociology has carried out such a derivative conception of practice by not only deciphering, under the banner of sociological theory, the rational foundation(s) of society out of the existing social relations and institutions, but also by offering a specific vision of the future to which modern practices should subscribe. The longpresumed metaphysical-referential identity between theory and practice did not allow ways of perceiving the relationship between theory and practice, thought and action, other than referentiality.3 By deconstructing such a relationship between theory and practice, which ultimately puts referential and derivative conceptions of action out of operation, a postmetaphysical approach frees thought and action from all metaphysical fetters. It thereby allows us to think a major shift into the post-modern, (that is, an era liberated from the burden of ultimate foundations). This direction will therefore prompt us to investigate and expose, as our point of departure, the referential assumptions prevalent in some of the contemporary social movement theories. As will be shown, such assumptions as human nature, rational/calculating individual, the subject, the agent, and the social structure intimate the modes of thought that belong to an era dominated by metaphysical representations of ultimate foundations. The central inquiry of this study is pregnant with other questions as well. Arguments for the “newness” of new social movements, as some social movement theorists have already indicated, call for critical examination. Throughout this text I will discuss how the highly connotative, multifaceted, small in appearance yet great in effect, adjective—“new”—poses serious predicaments for theory. Does a mere distinguishing of a set of contemporary practices from other practices—which are nowadays deemed, thanks to insight granted retrospectively, as once dominant—qualify the former as “new”? Or, is it merely the prevalence of certain practices resisting the formerly dominant modes of practice that designates them as “new”? Can we see the celebration of the “new” in the social movement literature...

Share