Everyday Revolutions: Horizontalism and Autonomy in Argentina

In the wake of the global financial crisis, new forms of social organization are beginning to take shape. Disparate groups of people are coming together in order to resist corporate globalization and seek a more positive way forward. These movements are not based on hierarchy; rather than looking to those in power to solve their problems, participants are looking to one another. In certain countries in the West, this has been demonstrated by the recent and remarkable rise of the Occupy movement. But in Argentina, such radical transformations have been taking place for years. Marina Sitrin tells the story of how regular people changed their country and inspired others across the world.

Reflecting on new forms of social organization, such as horizontalism and autogestión, as well as alternative conceptions of value and power, Marina Sitrin shows how an economic crisis spurred a people's rebellion; how factory workers and medical clinic technicians are running their workplaces themselves, without bosses; how people have taken over land to build homes, raise livestock, grow crops, and build schools, creating their own art and media in the process.

Daring and groundbreaking, Sitrin shows how the experiences of the autonomous movements in Argentina can help answer the question of how to turn a rupture into a revolution.

Marina A. Sitrin holds a PhD in Global Sociology and a JD in International Women's Human Rights. Her work focuses on social movements and justice, specifically looking at new forms of social organization, such as autogestion, horizontalidad, prefigurative politics, and new affective social relationships. Her first book, Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina, is an oral history based on the then emergent autonomous movements in Argentina, Spanish (Chilavert 2005) and English (AK Press 2006). She has published in a range of journals and books, from the International Journal of Contemporary Sociology to Znet, LeftTurn, and Yes! Magazine. While much of her most recent published work has been on the contemporary social movements in Argentina, she has worked throughout the Americas, Caribbean, and Japan. Her current research includes the global mass assembly movements, specifically in Greece, Spain, and Egypt.