In defense of conviviality and the collective subject

Abstract

This essay takes up the question of a “new” social paradigm by first examining the recent emergence of the U.S. Occupied Movement (OM) as a provocative and inspiring moment of political re-composition, but one that also narrates a more complex unraveling of what W.E.B Du Bois called “democratic despotism.” The most recent political tensions and economic “crisis” of the global north point to the disruption of a white “middle class” hegemony alongside inspiring moments of reconstructed conviviality. I suggest that the tension within spaces of occupation and convergence are animated by conviviality that should be read “politically” by noting the emergence of tools in service of community regeneration. Towards that end, I introduce Universidad de la Tierra Califas, a local project somewhere in-between network and collective pedagogies that is also a project of strategic conviviality and a Zapatismo beyond Chiapas. I argue that UT Califas engages a collective subject as part of an epistemological struggle inspired by Indigenous autonomy currently underway throughout Latin America.