Resume

• 2010

  University of South Florida

  University of South Florida

  University of Pennsylvania

  Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)

  Politics

  Freie Universität Berlin

  Vordiplom

  Politologie

• University Teaching

  Community Outreach

  Grant Writing

  Social Networking

  Program Development

  Qualitative Research

  Government

  Research

  Public Policy

  Teaching

  Higher Education

  International Relations

  Social Media

  Suturing Working Class Subjectivities: MMP and the Role of Media Building a Class-based Social Movement

  Due to the increasingly atomized

  isolated nature of social life

  as well as the apparent splintering of the working class under neoliberal capitalism

  media serve a pivotal infrastructural function for generating the necessary commonality between the fractured sectors of the contemporary working class. This article ethnographically and textually examines how the media driven practices of the Philadelphia-based Media Mobilizing Project helps collectively suture fragmented groups of workers into a class formation that begins to resist and challenge the hegemony of neoliberal practices. As our detailed analysis of MMP's 2007 to 2009 montage reels show

  MMP videos serve the primary purpose of fostering class alliances not only through their viewing

  but also

  and perhaps more importantly

  through their making. As such

  we do not consider media in general and the MMP videos in particular as an endpoint unto themselves

  but instead as catalysts for further organization building and the renewed suturing of the multiple components of what we understand as a contemporary urban working class. Through a host of old and new media platforms (radio

  video

  web) MMP works with different segments of the neoliberal working class

  such as immigrants

  urban youth

  and low-wage workers

  to create a class identity at the local and regional level.

  Suturing Working Class Subjectivities: MMP and the Role of Media Building a Class-based Social Movement

  The World Social Forum: Social Forums as Resistance Relays

  This article examines the World Social Forum and the global social forum process it has spurred by encouraging the creation of autonomous social forums on various levels

  from the local to the global. The article argues that social forums

  these “open spaces” for groups

  movements

  and networks opposed to neoliberalism

  start to function as “resistance relays.” On the basis of their common opposition to capitalism

  social forums provide a catalytic context for generating exchanges

  linkages

  convergences and mobilizations. As such

  they are strategic instruments of alter-globalization movements. While social forums seek to forge novel practices and visions over social change that point to a novel logic of social movement based resistance

  they are riddled with tensions and challenges.

  The World Social Forum: Social Forums as Resistance Relays

  Class In-Formation: The Intersection of Old and New Media in Contemporary Urban Social Movements

  This starts out by distinguishing between communication and communication mediums when examining social movement-powered formations of collective identity and collective action. We then focus on communication mediums to examine the different ways that old and new media are utilized in urban social movements under neoliberal capitalism. Based on shifts in the political economy and correspondingly in the contemporary composition of the working class

  we focus on the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia to argue that contemporary urban social movements and networks utilize a multi-media platform to further class-based politics. The respective use of old or new media depends on important contextual questions

  regarding technology access and geographic aspects of movement building work.

  Class In-Formation: The Intersection of Old and New Media in Contemporary Urban Social Movements

  Communications Networks

  Movements and the Neoliberal City

  Using the Philadelphia-based organization Media Mobilizing Project as a case study

  this article argues for a more sophisticated understanding of social movement networks. We argue that the frag- mentation of the neoliberal city has increased the saliency of networked-based organizing. Contrary to much of the existing scholarly literature

  however

  we argue that such networks combine horizontal and vertical forms of organization

  as well as online and offline media. Networks are not purely horizontal

  nor are new media necessarily the best or most nat- ural apparatus for developing networked social movements. Instead

  we argue

  radio and video may be better suited to connecting poor people in today’s cities. We also shift the locus of analysis away from transnational networks to local ones. While the fragmentation of communities and isolation of the poor can be found across a range of deindustrialized cities in the United States and globally

  the effect of deindustrialization and neoliberalism is asymmetri- cal. This difference gives the specifics of particular locations greater saliency in scholarly analysis. The local network reveals a three-dimensional political and organizational response that joins the contempo- rary urban landscape with the contemporary media landscape.

  Communications Networks

  Movements and the Neoliberal City

  The Global Social Forum Rhizome: A Theoretical Framework

  This work draws on Deleuze and Guattari's image of the ‘rhizome’ to develop a framework for mapping and understanding the global social forum process and its implications for the broader global left. The image of the rhizome is insightful for analytically accentuating the nature and workings

  as well as the challenges and contemporary shortcomings

  of the social forum process and more generally the broader global movement(s). Thriving on multiplicity and thus lacking a dominant core or main axis

  the social forum-as-rhizome emphasizes the multi-connectivity and heterogeneity of this process

  which has no central actor

  issue

  strategy

  or ideology

  beyond the strong opposition to neoliberalism. While what I call the ‘Global Social Forum Rhizome’ allows for unprecedented connections as well as tempering and managing inherent antinomies of the alter-globalization movement(s)

  its logic simultaneously limits the degree of congealed and resilient movement building. In the final analysis

  these intrinsic rhizomatic characteristics foster a rather thin articulation of commonalities and convergences

  which result in a politics often unable to move beyond mere symbolic acts and resistances and towards organizing

  campaigning

  and concrete movement building.

  The Global Social Forum Rhizome: A Theoretical Framework

  Understanding class as a process of self-making in relation to a particular

  historical form of capitalism

  in this article we argue that media and communication (from face-to- face and old mediums such as radio to internet-powered tools) must be conceptualized as an emerging structural dimension for class formation. Based on ethnographic fieldwork on the Media Mobilizing Project in Philadelphia

  a community-based media and communications infrastructure and a network of organizations across the region

  we develop a conceptual approach we call concentric practices

  which provides us with a framework of how contemporary class formation is occurring through the use of media and communications. Concentric practices we understand and analyze along three overlapping processes

  which establish a “common” among the different fragments of the working class: communicative spaces

  narrative practices and shared struggles. Analytically

  these concentric practices describe a process of thickening and converging of the atomized and fractured neoliberal working class. This model can be employed as a heuristic framework for a host of similarly situated dynamics

  aiding in teasing out and better understanding processes of class formation under neoliberal capitalism.

  Communication

  class and concentric media practices: Developing a contemporary rubric

  Traddutore

  Traditore? Regards Croises Sur La Zeitschrift fuer IB

  Traddutore

  Traditore? Regards Croises Sur La Zeitschrift fuer IB

  The Current Logic of Resistance: From Occupy Moments to Occupy Movements

  The Current Logic of Resistance: From Occupy Moments to Occupy Movements

  The Rhizomatic Left

  neoliberalism and class

  This article begins to theoretically explore today’s left social movement formations in relation to shifts in capital and class relations. The article links the emergence of a novel matrix of social movement politics

  which it calls the Rhizomatic Left

  to the structural shifts from Fordism to neoliberal capitalism. Drawing on Deleuze and Guattari

  the image of the rhizome is insightful for outlining the nature and workings of contemporary social movement powered politics. The article briefly sketches four central characteristics of the Rhizomatic Left: transnationality

  diversity

  multi-connectivity and communication. Despite arguable success

  however

  the Rhizomatic Left also faces inherent challenges for sustained movement building. The article locates these limitations in the absence of a unifying or transversal dimension of and for the diversity of the constitutive groups and movements of the Rhizomatic Left. The article suggests that re-emphasizing capitalism and class relations as such a transversal axis might allow the Rhizomatic Left to begin congealing as a more resilient movement formation

  shifting from a ‘class in itself’ to a ‘class for itself’.

  The Rhizomatic Left

  neoliberalism and class

  Funke

  Peter N.