Voices of Resistance: Communication and Social Change

7. Epilogue: Voices in Motion

 &KDSWHU 6HYHQ Introduction The final chapter summarizes the key points articulated throughout the book regarding alternative rationalities that challenge neoliberal forms of global governance. Through the re-presentations of voices of resistance from the global margins, I discuss the ways in which a global politics of resistance can contribute to social transformations and transformations in structures of oppression and exploitation. The alternative rationalities that are voiced by the various disenfranchised sectors of the globe who coconstruct their voices in dialogue offer a framework for organizing a global politics of resistance, which is at once local and is simultaneously global in nature. This global-local network of resistance disrupts the political and economic hegemony of neoliberalism by interrogating the assumptions that make up the neoliberal logic, and through these interrogations, attempting to render visible alternativeforms oforganizing social, cultural,political,and economic systems. Through the images, participatory articulations, community-based mobilizing efforts, global protest 9RLFHVLQ0RWLRQ (SLORJXH Epilogue: Voices in Motion  marches, performances, and narratives circulated through social media, the voices that co-construct a global politics of resistance throughout the pages of this book present an ongoing and emerging framework of organizing that outlines a politics of social change. What are the key threads then that run through these voices of social change that emerge at various sites of the globe? What are the moments of harmony between these voices? What are their points of departure? What are the lessons they offer about the expressions of human agency in conversations with cultural scripts that seek to transform the inequitable structures of local, national, and global policies? How do the voices that emerge in the pages of this book conceptualize the politics of social justice and the constitutive communicative processes that define the parameters of political participation in transformative endeavors? Voices in Conversation Although they represent diverse sectors of the globe with diverse worldviews , the voices of resistance across disparate geographic spaces of the globeoffermutuallyengagingentrypointsofconversation,articulatingthe intersections of culture, structure, and agency in the enactment of change. The cultural contexts of local communities offer value-based frameworks and symbols for enacting agency, putting forth alternative rationalities of organizing that challenge the structures of neoliberalism. As I participated in co-constructing my understandings of these global protests in writing this book, I came away impressed by the synergistic relationship between these different voices from different parts of the globe as they build on each other to narrate values and frameworks of resistance to the neoliberal colonization of the globe and global resources. In the following sections, I briefly summarize some of the key threads that run through these local processes of resistance, seeking to offer some meta-theoretical insights about the processes of change that are voiced in the stories of resistance. Voices of Resistance  Interpenetration of Issues The global challenge to neoliberalism offered at local sites is articulated in the form of discursive moves that draw out the inter-penetration of issues; for instance, resistance constituted around issues of development (such as the Save Niyamgiri movement) is intertwined with resistance organized around issues related to the environment, which in turn is intertwined with resistance around issues of economic and political justice. The voices of activism from the global South and the global North inter-penetrate each other, joining in solidarity and finding spaces of intersections around these various issues that serve as the entry points of mobilizing against neoliberal forms of governance. Material and symbolic markers of resistance from the global South find entry points in voices of resistance in the global North and vice versa. Simultaneously, these voices from South and North collaborate on developing shared frames of resistance as they draw upon mutual resources, issues, and structures to build networks of solidarity. Given the expansive role of neoliberalism in controlling various aspects of political, economic, social, and cultural life globally, at the heart of the global resistance against neoliberalism is the articulation of the intersections among the different issues and the inter-related relationships among these issues. Political struggles against corporate takeover of the environment, land, political spaces, economic spaces, and frameworks of development are all intertwined in their resistance against the consolidation of power in the hands of transnational hegemony. In many of these voices of social change, resistance against neoliberal governance emerges as the impetus for the protests, foregrounded in the narratives of the protests. In the voices of resistance from the global South (take, for...