Anne Harley, Interface
Road blockades have long
since been a tool of struggle, and in recent months have featured in protests
in South Africa, Guinea, Mozambique, Nigeria,
Palestine, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, India, Canada, Turkey, and probably
in most other countries in the world.
Whilst some road blockades might be considered spontaneous eruptions of anger,
with little reflective thought involved,
others are clearly part of conscious praxis, a tactic reflecting Gramsci’s ‘war
of manoeuvre’. However, I argue, road blockades are also used as a
counter-hegemonic pedagogical tool in a ‘war of position’, as one of the
associated pedagogies within the “multi-faceted praxis and political strategy”
of Subaltern Social Movements (Kapoor, 2011). The article uses two such movements,
Abahlali baseMjondolo in South Africa, and the piqueteros in Argentina, to
explore this claim.
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