Struggles for an Alternative Globalization: An Ethnography of Counterpower in Southern France

By: Gwyn Williams

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Synopsis: Through an anthropological study of a highly influential movement of French 'alterglobalization' activists, this book offers an ethnographic window onto the global movement against corporate capitalism and the neoliberal policies of the WTO. Based on extensive fieldwork on the Larzac plateau in rural southern France, it explores the politics of protest in which activists engage. It examines their resistance to various forms of power, their organization of struggle, their attempts to live out their ideals in daily life, and their challenges to conventional understandings of politics, democracy, economics, morality and globalization. By subjecting power and resistance to ethnographic study rather than adopting them as abstract categories of analysis, this volume makes an important contribution to theoretical debates on globalization, domination and resistance. It will be of interest not only to anthropologists and scholars of social movements, but also to sociologists and political scientists, as well as to activists themselves.