Leaderless Leaders Southern European Activism in London

8/10/2019 Leaderless Leaders Southern European Activism in London

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MarkBergfeld

Student ID: bs13455

PGT 130693891

Queen Mary University of London Schoolof Business and Management19.08.2014

Leaderless Leaders? Southern

European Activism in London


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Abstract

Contemporary social movements in Europe such as the occupation of Syntagma Square in Athens, the

indignados protests in the Spanish State and the Que Se Lixe a Troika movement in Portugal, have been labelled leaderless (Penny 2010, Mason 2011, Castells 2 012, Juris 2013, Graeber 2013). It isin this context that newly arrived Southern European migrants in London have adopted this label fortheir activism. The author does not accept the label as an adequate explanation of the complexrelationship between protest organisers, movement- activists and the social movements they participate in. Through the use of participant observation and in-depth interviews, he seeks to analyse(1) how do Southern European activists make sense of leadership and leaderlessness; ( 2) whatsocio-economic and political factors contribute to the rejection of leadership amongst SouthernEuropean migrant activists; and (3) what function do these activists perform in the wider migrantcommunity, and within social and labour movements in Britain. The author finds that there aredifferent overlapping typologies of leaderships both relational and skill-based - in contemporarysocial movement organisations of newly arrived migrants in London. While these activists may rejectthe label of leader they perform functions akin to that of a leader within the wider migrantcommunity and trade unions. However complex and contradictory the findings, this dissertation project make a unique contribution to the study of leadership in contemporary social movements andtrade unions.

Keywords: Migration, Social Movements, Trade Unions, Leadership, Leaderlessness,Eurozone Crisis


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Table of ContentsAcknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 4

Preface .................................................................................................................................................... 5

Introduction: Crisis, Migration and Leaderless Movements ............................................................... 9

Research Aims and Objectives .......................................................................................................... 12

Literature Review: Theorizing Leadership in Social Movements .......................................................... 15

Leadership in Trade Unions .............................................................................................................. 15

Dialogical Leadership: its not what you say but when you say it .................................................... 17

Leaderlessness reconsidered ............................................................................................................ 19

Collective and Informal Leaderships in Social Movement Organisations (SMOs) ............................ 21

Research Strategy: Asking we walk ................................................................................................... 23

Towards Solidarity and Activist Research ......................................................................................... 24

Participatory Observation and Online Ethnography ......................................................................... 26

In-depth Interviews ........................................................................................................................... 27

Ethics ................................................................................................................................................. 30

Typologies of (Anti-)Leadership ............................................................................................................ 33

Primitive Rebels ................................................................................................................................ 33

A class fraction in the making? ......................................................................................................... 36

The Power of the Admin ................................................................................................................... 39Collective Intelligence ....................................................................................................................... 42

Liquid Leadership .............................................................................................................................. 44

The Roots of Leaderlessness ................................................................................................................. 47

Crisis of Authority ............................................................................................................................. 47

Acting out of Affect ........................................................................................................................... 50

No gods, no masters, no leaders? ..................................................................................................... 53

The Leadership Function of Southern European Activists .................................................................... 56

in the trade unions? ...................................................................................................................... 56

in their communities? ................................................................................................................... 61

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................................. 65

Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 69

Appendix 1: Glossary of Organisations ................................................................................................. 74

Appendix 2: Biographical Sketches ....................................................................................................... 77


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Acknowledgements

This dissertation project is dedicated to my parents Heather and Mike whohave showered me with their love and unconditional support for the last 27years. There are no words that could express my gratitude. I would also like tothank my dissertation supervisor Professor Geraldine Healy for her support,her honesty and encouraging words in our meetings. She rekindled my interestin trade unions in the first place, for which I am grateful. All the intervieweesand participants in this research project deserve special thanks from myselfand everyone else out there. Your activism, organizing efforts and lives haveinspired me. I hope that this project will show the mark you have left on me.Without you this project would not have been possible. Albert, Liliana Zunaand Mariela Maitane also deserve a special mention for making their photos

and artwork available as well as sourcing photos across various platforms andsocial media sites for this project. The following other people deserve aspecial thanks: Anne Alexander, Colin Barker, Kenneth Bergfeld, AnindyaBhattacharyya, Nathan Bolton, Robin Burrett, Paolo Gerbaudo, SukhdevJohal, Dominic Kavakeb, Giuliano Maielli, Elizabeth Mantzari, JonathanMaunder at ZedBooks, Sandra Moog, Laura Saunders, Dan Swain, DanielTrilling, Win Windisch, and Luigi Wolf. All of you have encouraged me,stuck with me, and provided me with food for thought to last some people alifetime. Thank you.

Mark Bergfeld, Kln 19/08/2014


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Preface

On Sunday 11 May 2014 I was invited to speak at a meeting on European

citizenship organised by Migrantes Unidos a group of newly arrived

Portuguese migrants in London at Passing Clouds in Haggerston, London. It

was the final meeting in a series of three. The first two had been titledOur

voice and Citizens of the UK?. A week ahead of the European Union (EU)

elections, the meeting brought together Portuguese, Spanish and Greek

migrants who had previously demonstrated outside their embassies, at the EU

Commission building in London and wherever their foreign and financial

ministers had addressed crowds.

More than two years had passed since this same groups of migrants had

mobilized together as PIIGS Uncut on the Trades Union Congress (TUC)

organised mass demonstration on 20 October 2012. Nearly three years had

passed since they participated in the Occupy London encampment outside St

Pauls Cathedral. Now they were huddled into a room to discuss the rise of

UKIPs anti -immigration policies; their rights as EU citizens in the UK; the

euro; the prospects of the UK leaving the EU;and how Germanys export

economy continues to exacerbate trade imbalances within the eurozone.

As I spoke about the limits of European citizenship I recognized many faces in

the room: Claudia, Victor, Katerina, Marco, Rodrigo and Rafael, who knew I

was working on related questions and had invited me in the first place. For the

last three years our paths had crossed at various activist gatherings, meetings

and assemblies. These included events held outside the Spanish embassy,

organised by the activist group the Coalition of Resistance, by the UK student


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movement and by Occupy London. Yet it was only on that Sunday evening

that I realized these activists, who had previously rejected organization,

leaderships and political parties, had moved on from their initial positions and

opinions as I had encountered them during the height of the British anti-

austerity movement in 2011.

Claudia and Victor, two of the most prominent activists within the early days

of the Spanish 15M movement in London, were now campaigning for the

European Greens in London. Rafael, a Portuguese activist, had taken part in

industrial action with his University and College Union (UCU) branch in

recent months. The same was true for Katerina, a Greek anti-capitalist activist,

who now even held a position on her local UCU committee. In the meantime

their original organisation London Contra A Troika had transformed into

Migrantes Unidos, with Marco organising a number of debates and a strategic

reorientation. None of this had been planned when Rafael set up a Facebook

group back in September 2012 and invited friends to join him and Diana for a

demonstration outside the Portuguese embassy in Belgrave Square. Other

activists who had helped organise assemblies, such as Esther, Pancho and

Petros, had moved on to France, Germany or in Petross case back to Greece.

As the debate on an unusually warm and sunny Sunday evening dragged on, a

bald man by far the oldest participant in the meeting by far intervened to

exclaim:

I dont care whether you are a British citizen, European citizen,Portuguese or Spanish citizen. I dont care about left -wing parties, right-wing parties I only care about the workers. We are all workers and weneed to stand together.


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No one clapped.Peoples faces were blank. His message did not resonate with

anyone in the room. His working class internationalism was a relic of the past,

like the ancient black and white television set decorating the room. These were

los indignados , les enrags , precrios inflexveis a generation for whom the

language of workers, trade unions, social democratic and Communist parties

was as foreign as their new country of residence if not even more so. When I

spoke to Spanish activist Claudia after the meeting she polemicized against the

man: I dont care about what he said. Fo r f ks sake , I am not a worker I

care about humans.

People like Claudia had been involved in countless mobilizations,

demonstrations and actions against war, climate change and other political

causes. Her goals of social and gender justice were mostly likely congruent

with those of the bald man (whose name I did not find out). To an outsider,

she would have been considered part of the left. But when she spoke she used

the language of universal citizenship, real democracy, horizontalism, social

movements and precarity notions associated with the global movements of

2011 rather than the rank-and-file revolts of the 1970s.

In the wake of the Lehman Brothers collapse, Claudia and her fellow Southern

European migrant activists were thrown into the forefront of the fight against

austerity. The preceding 30 years of neoliberal offensive had eradicated many

of the social ties and traditions that working class resistance had come to

depend on. Tired of the apparent inefficacy of one-day strikes and votes for

social democratic parties, they had come to reject elections, institutions and

traditional working class leaderships, and strive for autonomy from them.


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Like the generations of activists and radicals who preceded them, they had to

renegotiate their positions in the course of countless mobilizations and

numerous meetings. The learning processes continue as I write this. I believe

they have a long road to travel but their ruthless criticism of the old and

relentless search for new truths will shape the future of working class politics

and social movements in years to come. In writing my dissertation project on

these activists and their journey, I hope to make a modest contribution to this

common development and to the working class protest movements of today.


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Introduction: Crisis, Migration and Leaderless Movements

By the time this dissertation project is read and marked six years will have

passed since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. It is fair to state that neither

trade unions nor traditional parties of the left have been able to defend their

members and supporter s interests against ensuing austerity measures and

declines in living standards (Seymour, 2014). For all the talk of recovery, the

average person in Britain is worse off in terms of GDP per head than six years

ago (Wearden & Fletcher, 2014). Countries such as Portugal, Italy, Ireland,

Greece, Spain the so-called PIIGS have little hope of escaping a vicious

cycle of recession and unemployment. According to the International Labour

Organisations Global Employment Trends 2014, it is the young in particular

who have suffered the consequences of economic decline and instability (ILO,

2014). The fact that youth unemployment rates exceed 55 per cent in Greece

and Spain should ring alarm bells for trade unions, parties of the left and

policy makers alike.

Yet all the only solution that politicians such as German chancellor Angela

Merkel or Portuguese prime minister Passos Coelho have come up with are

calls for Southern European youths to migrate (Wise, 2012; Evans, 2013). The

past dream of European mobility with Erasmus programmes and cheap

Ryanair flights has become a nightmare of forced economic migration for tens

of thousands of Southern European young people. The OECDcalls this new

wave of intra-European immigration an adjustment mechanism (OECD

2014). Despite the on-going racialization of Eastern European migrants from

Romania and Bulgaria and the scaremongering about British Muslims in the


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wake of the 9/11 attacks, Southern Europeans migrants have not been subject

to the same kind of oppressive or nationalistic discourses by British media or

politicians. However, British prime minister David Cameron stated that if

Greece was to leave the euro or its economy collapsed, Britain would need to

consider immigration restrictions (Watt, 2012).

Although many Southern European young people decided to migrate since the

economic crisis, a vast number of their peers have taken part in protest

movements against austerity, neoliberalism and for democracy in their

respective home countries. In Spain, mostly young protesters labelledlos

indignados occupied 200 town and city squares in May 2011. In

neighbouring Portugal, the Que Se Lixe a Troika (Screw the Troika)

movement saw more than 1.5 million people take to the streets on 15

September 2012 and 2 March 2013. These were the largest demonstrations in

Portugal since the fall of the Salazar dictatorship in 1974 (Principe, 2013). In

Greece, the killing of the 15-year old student Alexis Grigoropoulos in

December 2008 ignited a wave of social movements with an insurrectionary

character led predominantly by the young (Sotiris, 2013). Often these

movements were labelled leaderless in c haracter and form (Penny, 2010;

Mason, 2011; Castells, 2012; Juris, 2013; Graeber, 2013).

Meanwhile, Southern European migrants in cities such as Berlin, London and

Brussels have been organising demonstrations, direct actions, debates and

events to correspond with events back home or to demonstrate against visits of

by their foreign and finance ministers. In this dissertation project I focus on

Southern European activists, their groups and actions, due to the scope and

time available to me. However, I do not shy away from addressing immediate


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links or insights where they appear these in this piece of research. Thus I

examine the recently launched 15M worker action group in Berlin which helps

migrants with workplace issues (Doncel, 2014). This group was set up by

Pancho, who had spent one year in London and whom I interviewed for this

research project.

***

In the wake of 15 May 2011, Spanish immigrants in London organised

assemblies and camped outside of the Spanish embassy in Belgrave Square.The newly arrived Greek migrant community was quick to hold assemblies in

Trafalgar Square while their peers occupied Syntagma square in Athens in

June 2011. Since then, Greek activists in London have organised evenings in

solidarity with the worker-occupied ERT television and radio station,

demonstrations against the murder of anti-fascist Pavlos Fyssas and many

more demonstrations outside the Greek embassy in Holland Park. Among

others, they helped organised a debate on the future of the euro after the

radical left coalition Syrizas electoral breakthrough in June 20121. Younger

Portuguese migrants followed suit and called a demonstration under the

banner London Contra a Troika when their peers mobilised back at home.

In the course of the last three years, Southern European migrant activism in

London has adapted to new circumstances and frequently risen to new

challenges, just like the movements they continue to refer to2. The initial

novelty of this type of leaderless, decentralized and Internet-empowered

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The meeting was recorded and can be found on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDhfNCBOu20 (accessed 2 August 2014)2 For a full list of organisations, their size and activities please refer to Appendix 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDhfNCBOu20https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDhfNCBOu20https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDhfNCBOu20https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDhfNCBOu20


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activism has worn off. Periods of high leve mobilization have been

interspersed with periods of reflection, everyday resistance, debates and

strategizing. Notions once held dearly are being questioned, practices once the

norm no longer prevail, and principles are uprooted. The activists involved in

these groups, networks and organisations provide particular insights into

contemporary activism and forms of collective action precisely because of

their relatively marginal role withinBritains labour and social movements. It

is thus of particular interest what socio-economic and political factors

facilitate the rejection of leadership prevalent among these activists; what

function their activism performs within the wider migrant community, and

within labour and social movements in their new country of residence; and

how they seek to negotiate the question of leadership andleaderlessness in a

new environment.

Research Aims and Objectives

Drawing on the literature of leadership in social movements and trade unions,

this dissertation project addresses the following research questions:

How do Southern European activists make sense of leadership and leaderlessness ?

What socio-economic and political factors contribute to the rejection ofleadership amongst Southern European migrant activists?

What function do these activists perform in the wider migrant community, andwithin social and labour movements in Britain?

***

In addressing these questions I have made use of ethnographic methods, such

as participant observation, online ethnography and in-depth interviews. I draw

particularlyupon the notion of activist research (Hale , 2006) or solidarity

research (Haiven & Khasnabish, 2014) whi ch views activism as a form of


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knowledge co-production. This form of research facilitates the

democratization of the relationship between researcher and research-subjects;

and the co-participation of the research-subjects insofar as it allows for the

crea tive process of collective theorization and knowledge production carried

out from inside social movements (Juris 2013:24). This project avoids any

kind of analytic closure, and thus hopes to transcend the leadership/leaderless

dichotomy which has come to prevail the study of leadership in social

movements.

The first section of this dissertation seeks to understand whether new digital

media technologies actually facilitate leaderlessness, or whether they in fact

create new types of leadership within activist organisations. On the basis of

interviews and online ethnography, I argue that we are witnessing a new form

of leadership the power of the admin (Gerbaudo, 2013) within social

movement organisation. This is based on who controls Facebook groups, who

has the biographical availability to write emails and who displays media-

savviness. Furthermore, I draw on activists own conceptual frameworks of

collective intelligence and liquid leadership to show that s o-called

leaderless activists in fact reject particular kinds of leadership. These activist

theorisations require social movement researchers and trade union scholars to

rethink how we conceive activists own sense-making while social

movement researcher s theorizations go unnoticed by the activists themselves

(Cox & Nilsen, 2007).

The second section of this dissertation takes a step back and focuses on the

socio-economic trends and factors which facilitate a rejection of leadership

and have heralded an era ofleaderlessness . I argue that we are witnessing


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what Gramsci labelled a crisis of authority ( Gramsci, 1971). Social

democratic parties and trade unions are in as much of a crisis as bourgeois

parties. According to my interviews and participation observation with

Southern European migrants, young workers experience the crisis of authority

as precarious migrants, and as a marginalized and individualised class fraction

in the making. The result is an open political space which they seek to fill with

with an anarchist-influenced and affective politics which is anti-hegemonic. It

stops short of replacing the narrow economistic and bureaucratic social-

democratic leadership, but needs to be recognized as a growing phenomenon

in its own right.

In the third section I concentrate on the function these activists perform, and

the wider implications of their activism in accessing leadership within trade

unions and their respective migrant communities. The research participants

and interviewees generally decline to acknowledge that they perform

leadership roles within their groups, networks and organisations. But they

nonetheless function as so-called leaders within their wider migrant

community by organising events, and responding to current events in their

home countries. Moreover, they assume leadership within trade unions despite

their lack of resourcefulness, strategic capacity (Ganz, 2000) and strategic

leverage, orHandlungsfhigkeit , as Nachtwey and Wolf put it (Nachtwey &

Wolf , 2013). Although means that they cannot act as ahegemonic force

(Laclau & Mouffe, 1985) for wider layers, their function asbrokers (Diani ,

2003) between these growing migrant communities, local trade unions and

social movements is remarkable given the timescales in question and their

generally marginalized position.


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Literature Review: Theorizing Leadership in Social Movements

Leadership in Trade Unions

In recent years there has been growing interest in leadership and trade unions

(Ganz, 2010; Sadler, 2012; Kirton & Healy, 2012; Gall & Fiorito, 2012;

Nachtwey & Wolf, 2013). Here researchers seek to illuminate the links

between union commitment, membership participation and leadership.

Sadler examines the direct and indirect effects of high and low-level local

union leaders on various forms of member participation. She identifies

multiple leadership roles which foster union participation. For her, leadership

in trade unions relies on transformational leadership, interactional justice,

interpersonal skills and participatory leadership (2012:781). This chimes with

John Kellys notion that transformational leadership activate [s] particular

social identities and thatsubordinates then behave in terms of their group

identity (Kelly 1998:35). Here leadership is conceived as one-way

transmission of commands and entails strict hierarchy, as the use of the word

subordinates makes clear. Inadvertently this strand of literature can help us

to understand the types of leadership that activists examined here reject.

Gall & Fiorito argue that the above conception of leadership falls short since it

does not include a notion of activism (2012:716) or members self -activity.

As the research subjects in this dissertation project do not hold official

positions within their groups and networks,the notion of activism allows us

to search for other sources of legitimation. While this insight renders Gall &

Fioritos approach more dynamic, there is a qualitative difference between

analysing leadership in workplaces (where people work together and negotiate


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their position vis--vis their management) and leadership for activists who

seek to render issues in their home country visible at the symbolic level, and

often do not even seek to effect an immediate policy change.

Based on decades of organising experience in the trade union movement with

the United Farmworkers, Marshall Ganz argues that leadership is

motivational, relational, strategic and that action skills and the capacity

to develop these skills in others play key roles (Ganz , 2000:521). It

constitutes a craft, or a knowledge-based practice, which can be accessed by

individuals. Leadership allows groups of people to unlock strategic

potentialities. For Ganz, strategy, the command of resources (both internal and

external to the organisation) and leadership are interrelated and flow from one

another. Ganzs proposed model does however run into trouble with groups

and networks who do not articulate a strategy, such as the activists in question.

Does that necessarily mean that they lack leaders? How can we explain the

fact that some activists function as leaders while others do not?

Kirton & Healy offer a tentative answer through their complex accounts of

female trade unionists in Barbados, Britain and the United States (2012a,

2012b). They outline the problems faced by women who emerge as trade

union leaders at workplace, branch, local, regional and national level in white

and male dominated contexts (2012; 2012b:981). They advance the idea that

leadership cannot be accessed automatically, or by everyone.

The result is that women union leaders are often atypical older,childfree and sometimes partner free [S]ome women with heavyfamily and domestic responsibilities do participate and seek leadership

positions in unions because for them union work is not a burden, but aroute to an interesting, purposeful and satisfying life Leadership rolesoften come at a huge personal cost to women and men, but the issues forwomen are particularly potent. (Kirton & Healy 2012: 734)


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Kirton & Healys research has a lot to offer when researching Southern

European migrant activists. Other studies confirm that interpersonal factors

such as the privilege of presence (Fox Piven in Khatib et al , 2012) and

biographical availability (Ganz , 2000:523) having time and no family

are important factors in considering the ability or inability to access

leadership. But how does that change when all research subjects are of a

similar age group (young, mostly without family)? Does their biographical

availability permit a different kind of sociality/sociability? To what extent arethere different ways of performing leadership and taking up roles? The notion

of biographical availability will allow us to understand which factors (socio-

economic, political, personal) inhibit people from assuming leadership, despite

having the practice-based knowledge required.

Dialogical Leadership: i ts not what you say but when you say it

The concept ofdialogics (Bakhtin, 1986; Volosinov, 1986; Vygotsky, 1976)

constitutes a theoretical framework and tool of analysis to understand how

leadership constitutes itself as a knowledge-based practice. Thedialogians

have sought understand the unity of speech-language-activity in the process of

protest movements. They stress that speech and language is not only a one-

way transmission but also an appropriation of the material world (Vygotsky ,

1976). These critical psychological theories from within the Marxist tradition

see speech-language as mediating tool between the individual -self and the

socio-collective experience of unequal social relations under capitalism

(Brook, 2013:333).


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In congruence with the writings on leadership inside of trade unions, authors

such as Colin Barker and Chik Collins regard leadership in social movement

as a relational practice (Barker, 2001; Collins, 2000). They do not differentiate

between leader and follower, or speaker and listener. Instead they set the

listener and speaker on a level playing field. These theories can be read in a

new light given recent social movement practices such as thehuman

microphone at Occupy Wall Street which forced people to break down their

sentences into chunks which could then be collectively repeated by the crowd.

Barker provides useful starting point into transcending the leadership-

leaderlessness distinction by endowing both speaker and listener with agency.

The listener is as significant a participant as the speaker, indeed is preparing to switch places and formulate acounter-word, even if nomore than a grunt of assent or dissent. Listeners become speakers, andspeakers listeners, in a transforming process of social dialogue. On bothsides, we find agency and creativity. (Barker, 2001)

More mainstream sociological accounts have grappled with the form of speech

and listening as activity. Pierre Bourdieu emphasises the right moment

(kairos) of when one speaks over the content of what is said. To know what is

acceptable/unacceptable and what can be absorbed by the listener at any given

moment is a knowledge-based practice, yet at a different analytic level than

that which Ganz proposes. Bourdieu calls the relationship between language

and situation the linguistic habitus , i.e. the system of dispositions to say the

fitting word. (Bourdieu, 1990:48). The speaker expects a reaction from the

listener and tailors the message accordingly. Both Bourdieus and Barkers

insights raise pertinent methodological issues insofar that every movement-

participant is potentially a so-called leader.


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Leaderlessness reconsidered

As mentioned in the introduction, the label of leaderlessness has been

increasingly applied to new social movements (Penny, 2010; Mason, 2010;

Juris, 2013). However the above debates do not necessarily reflect that, with

the exception of Boehm et als study of (anti -)leadership in anarchistic SMOs

(2013). This is partially due to the ideological assumptions on behalf of those

who research social movements, and is further complicated by a lack of

consensus on methodology (Sadler, 2012; Gall & Fiorito, 2012).

I would argue that the label leaderless does not suffice to explain the

complex relationship between protest organisers, movement activists and the

social movements they participate in. Actions and events do not rise out of

nowhere they involve co-ordination and coalition building, paying attention

to pre-existing social ties, mobilising structures and social networks. The

political theorist and Occupy supporter Jodi Dean has even argued that the

notion of leaderlessness has inhibited social movements in their further

development (Dean, 2012:54), while Barker traces the dominant anti-

leadership discourse back to the ideologies of spontaneity which came out

of the New Left in the 1960s (Barker, 2001).

David Graeber and Paul Mason, however, argue that Occupy Wall Street and

other social movements of late have beenleaderless because of their use of

so-called networked technologies which have rendered centralised leadership

structures obsolete (Graeber, 2013; Mason, 2011). Occupy Wall Street, the

indignados and other movements involve decisions taken by consensus at a

general assembly, or through devolved working groups.


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However a closer look at Twitter users discloses that it is a medium based on

the function of following people. Active Twitter users usually have more

followers than people they follow. In other words, they become leaders or

experts through the number of followers they command. Rather than

obliterating leadership within social and political activism, leadership is

simply outsourced to those who are media-savvy, have journalist contacts on

Twitter, or can express themselves well in 140 characters (Gerbaudo, 2013).

As the movements of 2011 have waned a number of tensions and battles broke

out over the accountability of the admins of Occupy Wall Streets Facebook

pages and Twitter accounts (Levine, 2014). For example, different factions of

the former Occupy Wall Street protests continue to control different Facebook

and Twitter accounts (Gray, 2014). This has led to different demonstrations

and actions being called on different days (Susman, 2011), and even to

antisemitic posts being issued from one of the accounts (Pontz, 2012; Ynet,

2012). Moreover these Facebook pages have at times issued conflicting

statements on behalf of Occupy Wall Street. Even worse, individuals have

used the OWS Twitter account to promote themselves, start fights with other

activists or go ahead to start a Kickstarter campaign for their own private

militias on their personal Twitter accounts (rf. Levine, 2014). This has diluted

the political efficacy of Facebook pages that millions subscribe to. They

elevated Facebook and Twitter administrators into new and unaccountable

leadership positions. In light of these developments, the digital dimension

requires further analysis when studying the formation of leadership in social

movements.


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Collective and Informal Leaderships in Social MovementOrganisations (SMOs)

During the Occupy Wall Street protests the anthropologist David Graeber

wrote thatthe first decision ensured that there would be no formal leadership

structure that could be co-opted or coerced (Graeber, 2011). None of the

organisations and activists in this study have a formal leadership structure, but

that does not mean that leadership is not performed or related functions are not

assumed by individuals. Instead leadership functions on different levels, and at

different levels of analysis. Someone has to execute tasks to facilitate

successful collective collaboration. How this function is met or which tasks

are to be executed can be organised in different ways.

Even those aligned with contemporary forms ofleaderless activism and

social movements have started to theorise leadership in different ways. The

Occupy Research Collective has coined the term leaderful (Occupy

Research in Khatib et al, 2012) while activist-academic Dana Williams asserts

leadership in a positive way:There are no leaders (or, more radically,

everyone is a leader). (Williams 2012:19). By conceiving leadership as

vested in collectives and flowing from sets of collective practices and

knowledges from below, they contribute to a growing field dealing with formsof distributed leadership in organisations (Drath et al, 2008; Spillane, 2004).

These theoretical concepts however require further study. It remains to be seen

whether activists make sense of leadership in this way.

More problematic is the fact that distributed leadership is still confined to top-

down processes. Nevertheless it opens up possibilities to think about


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leadership as a transient phenomenon in contemporary social movements, as

something that can be accessed and then passed on. If we conceive of

leadership as transient or fleeting, or perhaps even a function which can be

taken up by multiple people at different times even within the same

campaign, mobilisation or meeting we can start to make sense of how

Williams and the Occupy Research Collective arrive at the conclusion of

leaderful movements. In allusion to the transient nature of leadership,

Robinson writes:

Leadership is exercised in moments when ideas expressed in talk oraction are recognized by others as capable of progressing tasks or

problems which are important to them [Robinson 2001:93]. (Boehm etal, 2013, emphasis added)

This also allows us to conceive of leadership in a broader sense than through

the prism of elected positions to trade union posts or formalised committee

structures inside SMOs. It helps us understand leadership by paying particular

attention to the ability of leadership to flow out of the collective collaboration

of individuals.


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Research Strategy: Asking we walk

Just as the activists I have engaged with, followed, shared stories with and

interviewed throughout this period, I have embarked on a journey which can

be summed up by the Zapatista maxim of asking we walk. I first

encountered the assemblies outside the Spanish embassy in May 2011. At the

time, I held an executive position within the National Union of Students

(NUS). I invited Spanish migrant activists to speak at student meetings at the

London Schoolof Economics, Kings College London and other institutions.

In the years that followed, I travelled to Portugal as an independent journalist

to cover the social movements and European-wide general strike in the

autumn of 2012. This brought me into contact with Portuguese migrant

activists from London Contra a Troika which would become Migrantes

Unidos as the Troika, at least officially, pulled out of Portugal. Finally, three

days into having returned to academia to study at Queen Mary School of

Business and Management, the Greek anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas was

murdered by members of the fascist party Golden Dawn on 18 September

2013. This sparked the largest protests in Greece since the mid-2011. On the

following Saturday, I attended the solidarity vigil among thousands outside the

Greek embassy in Londons Holland Park.

Developing a robust research method has been an intrinsic part of this research

project from the very beginning. I employed a number of ethnographic

methods, such as participant observation, in-depth interviews and online

ethnography. The strategy here is two-fold. On the one hand, I use invocation

to raise awareness of the issues of these newly arrived Southern European


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migrants. On the other hand, I draw on the most recent research by Haiven &

Khasnabish (2014) who propose a strategy of convocation which ultimately

amounts to a process of critical self -reflection, of locating oneself and ones

struggles within multiple intersections of power, and of change and

transformation. (2014:17). This means introducing new lines of questioning,

opening up a space of debate and discussion as well as collaborating creatively

and theoretically alongside the research subjects (or better, participants).

These two strategies need not stand in contradistinction to one another but can

rather complement each other. This dual strategy I believe overcomes the

challenge of occupying different roles throughout this research project.

Towards Solidarity and Activist Research

A number of research methods such as surveys (Nachtwey & Decieux, 2013;

Daphi, Rucht et al. 2014), discourse analysis (rf. Howarth, Norval &

Stavrakakis, 2000) and focus groups (Freire 1970/1993; Touraine 1981;

Melucci 1996, Munday 2006) were considered for the purposes of this

dissertation project but deemed inappropriate to answer the research questions

as none of them could account for activists learning processes and

movements strategic developments, and understand the economic and socio -

political roots of leaderlessness.

Social movement researchers often choose to analyse so-calledsuccessful

movements which show tangible results such as the efficacy of its demands,

policy changes or the formation of new institutions/organisations. But the

activists I have focused on have been chosen because of the challenges they

encounter and the ways they seek to renegotiate ideas or make sense of


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activism in a foreign setting. The use of ethnographic methods allowed me to

immerse myself into a setting and participate alongside them in their situated

activity. Understanding the continuities and differences between cycles of

mobilization required this type of politically engaged form of ethnographic

researchwhich not only generates knowledge that we hope can be useful for

those with whom we study but also potentially constitutes a form of activism

itself . (Juris, 2013:9).

Recent publications such as Jeffrey S Juriss Insurgent Encounters:

Transnational Activism, Ethnography and the Political (2013) and Paul Brook

& Ralph Darlingtons article Partisan, Scholarly and Active: For an Organic

Public Sociology of Work and the Case of Critical Labour Studies (2013) act

as methodological starting points for my research. Both draw on and widen the

scope of Participatory Action Research (PAR). According to both, social

movement research ought to democratise the relationship between the research

object and subject, the researcher and the researched. In doing so, it

understands social movements as knowledge-producers and researchers as co-

producers of that knowledge. Furthermore, social movement research ought to

produce research from within the movement for that movement. Juris writes

that the only way to truly grasp the concrete logic of activist networking is to

become an active practitioner (Juris, 2013:26). In the process of praxis, the

researcher allows him or herself to be transformed by the findings in as much

as participants transform themselves in the process of contention.


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Participatory Observation and Online Ethnography

There are different levels of participation when adopting an ethnographic

approach. In this dissertation project, I did not choose to conduct covert

participation as it would violate the principle of informed consent. It would

have also inhibited me from the openly enquiring and asking questions. I was

a participant as observer. I was thus able to empathize and walk in activists

shoes rather than just sit on the sidelines.

My status as a Greek-German migrant in the UK created the sense of a

common experience between me and the research participants that I doubt

would have been achieved if I were a British citizen.

In the case of this project there were the following periods of participatory

observation. Given my extensive diary writing and note taking over the years I

was able to draw upon:

engagement with 15M assemblies outside of the Spanish embassy in May2011. This included video interviews for YouTube channels, and building linkswith Spanish activists by inviting them to address activists from the UK

student movement. individual participation at the occasional demonstrations outside of the Greek

embassy. participation in Occupy London Stock Exchange and the events of the

University Tent City.

participation as a committee member and speaker in the Coalition of Resistance Europe Against Austerity Conference in which Spanish andGreek activists from London participated.

news reporting on the London Contra a Troika demonstration outside the Portuguese embassy, Belgrave Square.

speaking at the Migrantes Unidos meeting European citizens? at PassingClouds, Haggerston on 11 May 2014.

The phases of participatory research have been complemented with an online

ethnography as proposed by Slater & Miller (2000) and Hine (2002). This


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allowed me to follow the group and individual activists at all times, even when

not geographically present. The online ethnography involved following the

organisations webpage, blogs, keeping track of press statements, Facebook,

Twitter and YouTube accounts, being part of email discussions as well as

following the way the organisation was presented in the media. I even was

granted admin rights to theSolidarity with the Greek Resistance Facebook

page. This particularly helped my attempts to grapple with who the key

activists were in different arenas.

Searching through Facebook groups, Twitter accounts, hashtags and websites

narrowed the number of possible interviewees. There were three groups of

people. First, there were those who held admin rights or were power users

on Facebook, such as Marco and Katerina. Second, there were those who

appeared on YouTube videos and similar media, such as Claudia and Victor.

Third, there were those who appeared in the media through theorizing their

activities, such as Rafael, who wrote a blog post for the trade union magazine

Labour Briefing.

In-depth Interviews

In-depth interviews constituted the central part of my research. They were an

effective and practical way of obtaining data on the meaning behind peoples

individual and collective actions inside of social movements (Ritchie & Lewis,

2003:138). Interviews require the activist to grapple with his/her different

affinities and affiliations, and to try and figure out how they think about the

world at large and the way they related to new settings. The method allowed

respondents the time and scope to talk about their opinions and values.


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Interviewees did not simply reveal knowledge about themselves, but also

about the world they live in, how they operate inside their particular media

environment, and how they negotiatedleaderlessness and leadership. The

data generated in interviews was primarily based on listening to people and

learning from them (Morgan , 1998: 9). It fitted well with my overall research

strategy, given the paucity of information available on this group of activists

and their activities.

According to Clough & Nutbrown (2007) the effectiveness of interviews

depends on the on the communication skills of the interviewer. Given my

previous research in training in the Doctoral Teaching Centre at Goldsmiths

College, University of London, and my previous research experience at the

University of Essex, I saw myself as well-equipped to undertake these

interviews. The interviews lasted between 45 and 90 minutes each.

There were challenges in interviewing everyone I had selected from online

ethnography. There was no problem getting in touch with activists over

Facebook or email. But many of those who had been active in one or the other

group, network or circle no longer lived in London. Thus I convened

interviews via Skype with Petros, who now was back in Athens, and Pancho,

who had moved to Berlin. For social scientists, online interviews are a new

interview genre (Ardevol & Gomez-Cruz, 2012) as they are multi-modal

(video, sound, chat functions, hyperlink function, can be recorded) and in no

way inferior to offline interviews. This provided a unique insight into

Panchos n ew group, the 15M Worker Action Group in Berlin, which was also

featured in Berliner Zeitung, Der Spiegel andSpains El Pais around that time.


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Katerina raised one of the challenges herselfwhen she said: Even with this

interview it would be completely differentif it were happening in Greek.

This is true. Yet the fact that all interviewees have university degrees (or even

work in a university setting) and speak and write in English very well made

this less of a problem than if I were to interview racialized, marginalised or

less well educated migrants. I did, however, pay particular attention to the

length of the interviewees, setting them in places of their choosing and seeking

to make the situation as accessible as possible.

I strategically abstained from using computer programmes such as NVivo or

others to code the interviews given the small sample size of interviews.

Further criticisms of NVivo include that it can lead to the fragmentation of

knowledge, and create its own analytical categories which are based on

mechanics rather than on grounded knowledge (Bazeley 2006: 7) Instead

coding them manually by drawing on themes that emerged in all interviews

and then dividing them into sub-themes. The first four themes I identified in

the interviews were: work, leadership, activism and the Internet. I then went

about and created sub-themes which took my literature review into account

and were primarily based on what the actors themselves described. This

method allowed me to counter the fragmentation of knowledge which so often

occurs. I was also accompanied by a Spanish artist-activist at some interviews

who would sketch the conversation, and thus facilitate my coding method, and

even determine categories and sub-categories to analyse the data.

Based on my dual strategy of invocation and convocation I chose to feature

activists own w ords as much as possible. If labour has been deprived of a

voice under neoliberalism, this is even more the case with marginalized groups


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such as migrants, women, people of colour, workers and other subaltern

groups. The participating activists here experience marginalization far too

often, even within activist circles. Too frequently social movement research

seeks to describe the demands and activity of these groups without letting

these marginalized groups actually tell their own story or find their own voice.

Interviews cannot necessarily overcome this problem, but treating the

interviews as co-production of knowledge (as opposed to mere generated data)

can facilitate a shift in the way we think about their role and the functions they

play. Most recently, Dario Azzellini and Marina Sitrin have shown that it is

possible to use activists words as theorizations in their own right rather than

as rejections or confirmations of theories developed in academia (2014). In so

doing, they write for social movements rather than simply about them. This

project follows in that vein.

Ethics

I have worked on the basis of informed consent which seeks to balance

participants interests with so -called policy objectives, moral considerations

and interests of third parties. In doing so, I have drawn on Durham

Universitys Communit y-based participatory research a guide to ethical

principles and practice (2012) and the British Sociological Associations

Statement of Ethical Practice. My participation in the ESRC Doctoral Training

Centre in Qualitative Research has provided me with a solid foundation in

understanding different ethical approaches and associated questions.

I completed the universitys Fast Track Ethics Questionnaire which

subsequently was approved. Throughout the project I have sought to foster


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mutual respect, democratic participation, personal integrity and the

establishment of protocols between the researcher and the community in

question. One of these protocols was to guarantee that research participants

could be anonymised. Indeed, one participant sought anonymity. As a

consequence, I have anonymised all interviewee participants for the sake of

consistency. Another protocol was not to disclose their workplace so as to

avoid sanctions by employers. Lastly, I made all participants aware of the fact

that they could withdraw their consent at any given time throughout the

project.

None of the participants partake in any illegal political activities, or endorse

tactics which could be deemed harmful to individuals, groups of people or

private property. This facilitates a reciprocity and equality between the

researcher and the participants. The sustained contact between the two parties

facilitated ethics which are in many respects superior to those associated with

researchers solely seekingacademic capital in form of publications and

papers. This is underlined by the researchers commitment to social change

and opposition to all forms of oppression.

The use of online research methods such as online interviews raised new

questions which had to be answered in the course of the situated activity. For

example, I had not previously agreed with interviewees whether we would use

a webcam during Skype calls. I therefore asked which option they would like

without indicating any preference on my part. One person decided to use the

webcam, the other did not for technical reasons. Thus the dissertation project

provided opportunities for a re-engagement with ethical questions over

ethnographic methods.


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As a researcher I am committed to positive social change and view research as

a tool against all forms of oppression. This created the basis for good practice.

Interviewees felt confident enough to ask to see transcribed interviews and

notes taken, for example. The majority entrusted me with the interview

material in good faith.


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Typologies of (Anti-)Leadership

In this section I argue that the current literature on leadership within trade

unions and social movements does not suffice to understand the complex way

in which leadership formation among Southern European migrant activists

take place. I contend that due to their position as a class fraction in the

making, we find three overlapping typologies of leadership in such informal

organisational structures in their groups and networks. This leadership is

internet-empowered, collective and liquid.

Primitive Rebels

Some of the Southern European activists such as Rodrigo, Katerina and Petros

first came here as students and remained in Britain as the economic situation

in their home countries worsened. According to Guy Standing, the

phenomenon of student mobility is under-theorised despite the fact that

numbers have increased by 50 per cent between 2001 and 2008 (Standing,

2011:92). However others, such as Anita, Marco, Victor, Claudia, Rafael, and

Pancho came to the UK to work (some of which included periods of study and

research). Katerina observes a shift toward the latter in the migration pattern

of young Greeks coming to London:

The demographics have changed in the last year. Most people wereeither students or stayed here to work after their masters. That is themajority of people who came to the Greek embassy and meetings. Veryfew people will be here for many years or you could call them an oldergeneration. Half of the people, or most of the people, have already leftand returned to Greece. If we update the list of people it is impossible. Inthe last six months or year I can see the difference in demographics. Youcan see the students who stayed to work. But now you can see working

people coming over, not people who have studied: waiters, chefs thatkind of proletariat [laughs] coming. In terms of the Solidarity with theGreek Resistancewe dont see that change though.


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Unlike in the 1960s and 1970s when migrants came into vibrant industrial

trade union structures in Northern Europe, new migrants enter service sector

jobs such as delivering pizzas (Pancho), or work in cinemas or bike repair

shops (Victor). Even when they work in software companies like Marco, trade

union structures barely exist. Universities are the exception. Southern

European migrants such as Katerina and Rafael accordingly are trade union

members. Nonetheless, these workplaces have become bastions of precarious

work and casualization of labour, and members interests have not been

defended. In this sense, these activists are not part of the traditional working

class with bonds reaching back for generations. As can be seen from the

literature, and from my observations and interviews, this has far-reaching

implications for their practices. It offers a possible explanation for their

rejection of leadership, their difficulties in accessing leadership, and the way

the two relate to one another.

In his book Primitive Rebels , Eric Hobsbawm describes the character of such

movements [as] of ten undetermined (1959:2). These activists do not squarely

fit into the category of the socialist or labour movements. Hobsbawm contends

that these primitive rebels are often first generation immigrants from

varying heterogeneous class positions. According to him, they are:

pre-political people who have not yet found, or only begun to find, aspecific language in which to express their aspirations about the world(Hobsbawm, 1959:2)

This partially explains why the Migrantes Unidos organised a meeting on

European citizenship, UK citizens and one calledOur voice . They are


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seeking to find their place. It also starts to put Claudias aversion toward the

older worker, as mentioned in the preface, into context. The activists neither

fit into existing networks of Greek, Spanish or Portuguese professionals nor do

they fit into the local trade union movement. As a matter of fact, they do not

even fit into the picture of the migrant which has come to dominate

mainstream discourses. Unlike Bulgarian and Romanian migrants, these

Southern European migrants are not racialized. Nor are they undocumented, as

are the vast majority of migrants are worldwide. Instead they have legal, civil,

political and social rights as EU citizens. During one of the interviews, Anita

recalled discussions on this issue:

At the beginning we didnt even call ourselves migrants. We were intoother things. We looked at the world in terms of European citizens.There are connotations with being a migrant, maybe people could jointhe movement, maybe people wouldnt cause the issue of migration ishuge.

Citizenship is based on exclusions and continuously produces new forms of

exclusions and inclusions in order for the ruling class to maintain leadership

and hegemony. It is therefore questionable whether citizenship can be a

positive reference point for their activities. In the same sense, the notion of

leadership is based on exclusions which activists seek to avoid at all costs.

Thus leaderlessness is a way to signify openness or an undogmatic stance to a

wide variety of ideas, rejection of ruling class values, and the pursuit of an

emancipatory project beyond the old language of central committees,

communism and socialism. In so doing, these migrants, like others before

them, successfully turned their marginalisation, exclusion and exploitation into

a terrain of resistance (Munck et al , 2012) which the widespread

phenomenon of precarity had apparently undermined.


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A class fraction in the making?

Arguably we are dealing with a new social category of highly educated

migrants who, thanks to the economic crisis, have become a modern

circulant (Standing , 2011:92) or habitually mobile (Candeia s, 2014). The

individual activist biographies highlight this in more depth. While some would

like us to believe that these people are part of the precariat (Standing, 2011)

or a new class emerging (Mason , 2011) I would argue that they are part of a

growing social strata a class fraction in the making given the continued

predominance of contractual work and non-migration of workers in Northern

Europe.

For example, Petros and Pancho have lived between three different countries

in the last three years. Their habitual mobility stands in c ontradiction to their

biographical availability and render s it impossible for them to acquire the

relational and dialogical skills to access and perform leadership in the

traditional sense. Butdue the continuous growth of this class fraction in the

making, its political importance in the context of the eurozone crisis, and its

role in the accumulation regime, they are able to access leadership in newly

arrived migrant groups. They might not necessarily build up resourcefulness

or strategic capacity, but their tactical aptitude (i n calling demonstrations,

organise meetings etc.) offers them a possibility to lead.

Both Ganz (2010) and Nachtwey & Wolf (2013) write about the necessity of

strategy in the process of leadership formation. Yet none of these activists

have a clearly formulated strategy, let alone strategic leverage as a member of

this class fraction in the making. This became particularly obvious in the


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wake of the European elections, when all of my interviewees had problems

voting. They issued a press release on the topic, which led to a story in the

Portuguese press and one in the Independent in Britain. Yet their lack of

strategy meant that their campaign #votedenied merely remained at the

symbolic level.

Rafael is well aware of the problem that there is a lack of strategy which

inhibits them from changing policy, or in fact anything at all.

These demonstrations create a bit of a sense of false perspective though but in the end people think we didnt do anything there. We weresupposed to demonstrate but we didnt change anything by beingthere In the back of peoples heads there was this idea of visibility inour country of origin. That was what people were aspiring for. It has todo with the fact that you emigrate, you disappear a bit. Its a way ofrestoring things.

Being part of this class fraction in the making is first and foremost an

individualising experience as the majority of individuals lack the strategic

capacity and biographical availability to access leadership, while social bonds

and ties have been mostly eradicated in the workplaces and neighbourhoods

they enter. In all my interviews and discussions, individualisation and

marginalisation played a prominent role. Katerina attributed her experience of

marginalisation and individualisation to different political traditions and

cultures. Anita claimed it was language which complicated things for her,

citing participation in Occupy assemblies as an example. In turn, this

individualisation facilitates a rejection of elected and established leaderships.

The following examples highlight the wider problem at hand. Claudia says:

We are far more individualistic The social context is so radicallydifferent from 30 to 40 years ago, not only in the forms that peopleorganise themselves, but also that people have become more


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individualistic. People have become consumers. Were not citizens,were consumers Usually people are more concerned with their owncareers and professions, their personal development and not so muchwith justice. They havent left Spain in exile. They are not exiles fromthe Civil War. They are people who have left because they want to

progress according to the terms of capitalism, so I dont thi nk they are potential recruits for the movement.

Rafael says in a similar vein:

The way you live, the way you work. You always feel like you are a step behind. You dont have the same voice. That has been a barrier. Buttheres also personal reasons. I h ave been very precarious doing small jobs and trying to survive, trying to get my way into doing what I wantto do, being a researcher. Partly, its a bit like selfish individualism Isuppose But you dont have a proper collective when you are precarious.You dont feel like you belong to a body in which you can

take part And in our universities our problems our precariousness,lack of solidarity. If you have to fight like this, everyone is fightingagainst each other, very individualized. We have all these impositions ofvalue measurements which negate our critical work.

At first glance their lack of biographical availability would render it

impossible to organise members of this class fraction in the making. But we

should reject such an economically reductionist reading. It is not the case that

their indeterminate transitional position within the regime of accumulation

simply determines their situated activityas leaderless. The activists in

question do assume responsibility within their own organisations such as

Migrantes Unidos, Solidarity with the Greek Resistance, 15M Londres, PIIGS

Uncut and others. Some actors such as Rafael and Katerina even participate

and lead in their local University and College branches (UCU), despite

Rafaels utterance that m igrants are not part of the union. Others are active

within coalitions such as the Coalition of Resistance or the Peoples

Assembly, which are both funded by Unite the Union and have strong links to

the National Union of Teachers (NUT).


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The socio-economic position of Southern European activists as precarious

migrants and a class fraction in the making only offers a partial explanation as

to why they would reject formal leadership, and seek out symbols, meanings

and language which are distinct from the traditional institutions of the working

class such as trade unions and social democratic parties. What explains this

rejection of leadership? In order to offer an explanation, let us turn our

attention to the way their class position relates to wider trends on the macro-

level.

The Power of the Admin

The use of so-called networked technologies apparently renders centralised

leadership structures obsolete (Graeber, 2013; Mason, 2011). But based on my

research, social media and digital technologies have not rendered leadership

obsolete as network theorists such as Castells would have us believe (2012:5).

Instead we find new types of leadership, devoid of authority but based on the

interaction of relational practices and a skill-set of commanding digital

technologies and the media.

Southern European migrant activists might reject the kind of top-down

leadership prevalent in trade unions (Gall & Fiorito, 2012; Sadler, 2012) but

they nonetheless perform leadership functions through their activism and their

own initiatives. Since the advent of social media platforms such as Twitter and

Facebook, taking initiative has become far easier for activists. In some

ways, taking initiatives such as setting up an online event or demonstration

over Facebook requires a combination of the knowledge-based skills and

relational practices outlined in the previous section. While the framework of


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dialogical leadership (Barker, 2001) is based on the skill ofactive

listening and responding adequately, this new type of digitally mediated

leadership requires us to rethink what constitutes a relational practice.

In one of our discussions Rafael, a Portuguese activist, recounted how he set

up a Facebook group for the first demonstration on 15 September 2014.

I received an email or Facebook message from Diana because there wasgoing to be a big demonstration on 15 September 2012. I created aFacebook page and we started distributing. We had more than 100 people turn up at the embassy.

Facebook required him to choose a name for the event. As the demonstrations

in Portugal were labelled Que Se Lixe a Troika (Screw the Troika), Rafael

chose London Contra a Troika. Theyonly mobilized through Facebook for

first demonstration. Rodrigocommented that it was a form of mobilization

that draws people in that otherwise would be scattered . In effect, this

endowed Rafael with what communications scholar Paolo Gerbaudo has

referred to as the power of the Admin (Gerbaudo, 2013). Here, Facebook

administrators or those Twitter users with many followers command new

types of power within social movements and organisations.

Katerina from Solidarity with the Greek Resistance has admin powers over

their Facebook page and was able to issue the call for the demonstration

following the murder of the Greek anti-fascist rapper Pavlos Fyssas. Her

previous activism had equipped her with the tools to call a mobilization and

the necessary skills to command them. But this did not mean that starting a

Facebook event grants one the same kind of authority that a trade union

representative, for example, has. A similar type of leadership can be observed


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within the Portuguese Migrantes Unidos group. Marco is one of the power

users on their discussion group, email lists. According to Rodrigo,Marco

has been keeping it alive by organising Doodle polls for scheduling events

and updating the Facebook presence of the group. However, Marcos media-

savviness extends beyond the online realm. In the run-up to the event at

Passing Clouds, Marco managed to get jingles advertising the debate into

Portuguese community radio.

Rafael provides an explanation of this phenomenon:

Of course, there are leaders who emerge. Diana and I are very visible because we started this through setting up social networks.

In the eyes of the activists, being visible or commanding a Facebook group or

email list is different from being a leader. It is mediated and symbolic. In

many ways, their arguments chime with Juriss account of how the use of

different online media createshorizontal relationships between activists.

Dispersed activists from diverse ideological background can use the newest

digital technologies such as email lists and alternative networks of

communicationand create a cultural logic of networking and decentralized

organisational forms (2008:15) with no centre or command structure.

However my online ethnography disclosed that it was those activists who were

biographically available, in jobs that permitted them to use the internet or

possessing the above outlined skills, that could take initiatives or dominate

discussions on email lists. Activists also developed forms of democracy on

Facebook and email lists through the use of Doodle polls and other

mechanisms. All of this speaks of a high degree of organisation and

inclusiveness, at levels which I had not experienced in my time as an activist.


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Collective Intelligence

This inclusiveness allowed the Spanish activists, for example, to tap into their

real source of power which Victorlabelled the collective intelligence. This

collective intelligence emerged as the guiding principle among Spanish

activists camping outside the embassy in Belgrave Square. It was facilitated by

the organisational structures which activists had put in place. Unlike the

managerial paradigm of distributed leadership mentioned in the section

above, the notion of collective intelligence asserts leadership through

collective collaboration and synthesis. While it comes close to the notion of

leaderful (Occupy Research 2012), it is more than the inversion of

leaderless and more honest, since it bases itself on collective learning

processes and the co-production of knowledge. Victor describes the way in

which individual self-transformation and collective learning processes

interrelated:

I learnt a lot of things though, I learnt about myself, the people, I assumethat this was part of the process: my personal process and the collective process. The thing I really discovered in 15M, this was really one of the big achievements of the process. It was what we call the development ofcollective intelligence Collective intelligence came out of Puerta deSol in Madrid. When you are in an assembly, you have this kind ofdiscussion process and you are trying to win votes. But many times youwanted to talk in 15M you were put to the back, so by the time youwanted to talk you had forgotten what to say, or completely changedyour mind. Maybe you add something. We were creating differentthings, wielding something together with other people. Someone sayslets go into this direction and you say yes And you may. Itwasnt something pre -set. It was something that we were discovering. Inmy case, this process was absolutely amazing.

Anita reiterated a similar experience on a separate occasion:

Nobody is leading the trail of thinking. The decisions are first thoughtthrough the group. Everyone can share their opinion. You dont have tocompete for the right answer or the outcome it is something which is built together. There is not a hierarchy. You consider step by step thatthere is a collective process of thinking and you share that responsibility


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as a group. You witness the whole process as a group. You dont waitfor a person to take a decision. You are there together from the beginning to the end.

The structures of working groups and commissions, which activists adoptedfrom the 15M movement in Spain, facilitated this collective intelligence.

Depending on what a movement participant was interested in they could join

or even start their own thematic working group. Anita, for example, was a

member of the arts and communications commission. It is not known exactly

how many working groups and commissions there were, but activists believe

there were around 20. The activists within them acted as a collective

intelligence on the given subject matter. This was facilitated by new

technologies which allowed multiple authors to work on documents and

statements at the same time. But it was also a product of the transient nature of

the group as Anita recalls:

Many people left the city they came and went. What remained werethe core groups and commissions that helped new people to arrive tointegrate in these commissions.

In many ways, the structures even safeguarded against the emergence of

individual leaders within the 15M movement in London.Moderatores and

facilidatores volunteered on a rotational basis. The former would facilitate

the discussion while the latter would read participants body language and

check the flow of communication within the assembly. This meant that

individuals could not dominate by rhetoric. Claudia describes this:

There are always informal leaderships. This is inevitable but I dontthink its because of the lack of formal structures. Its human nature.Some people have more outgoing personalities, or manipulative personalities, or clear agendas, even in an unconscious way. Butcollectively we always managed to, if not neutralise, tackle those

attempts to concentrate power in one way or another.


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Thinking about leadership in times of leaderlessness in terms of collective

intelligence represents a way to transcend the leadership/leaderlessness

dichotomy present in many of the discussions on this topic. In many ways, it is

a superior framework to the notion of leaderful ness, given that it is attached

to practices and skills, and represents an immediate solution to some of the

issues activists encountered with people coming and going, and emergent

leaders within the movement. Although as Claudia points out, it does not solve

all issues with individuals who do assume roles within groups.

The following example from the Portuguese group London Contra A Troika

(now Migrantes Unidos) provides a good overview how individuals assume

leadership functions within organisations that not only reject formal

committee structures but the very idea of leaders.

Liquid Leadership

We want democracy and not a leader to follow. People are really afraidof giving someone power. If you have elected leaders you haverepresentation and that is not welcome. But you do have leaders in thesense that are acting. But it is fluid or jelly leadership you have aliquid leadership of the people who are willing and able to.

Marcos description above of leadership within Migrantes Unidos illuminates

how a group which rejects leaders can nevertheless make sense of how

leadership operates in a practical way. Leadership emerges inside this group

on the basis of an ad hoc rotation system between different activists,

depending on who has time (biographical availability) and who is motivated.

The notion of liquid leadership appears to have its roots in the open source

community and digital rights activism, which Marco previously belonged to.


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While a google search does not yield any significant results along those lines,

it is necessary to state that the Pirate Party calls its form of democratic

decision-making liquid democracy.

Liquid leadership highlights to what extent different people assumed

leadership functions at different times, yet continued play key roles throughout

the whole wave of mobilization, contemplation and organisation. The model

of liquid leadership functioned well given the groups continued reference to

the Que Se Lixe a Troika movement in Portugal, and its continued openness to

other activists. Yet despite this liquid model, clashes arose within the group

during their co-operation with PIIGS Uncut in the run-up to the TUC

demonstration on 20 October 2012.The problem with this type of liquid

leadership is the issue of scale. But not only. The Pirate Partys liquid

democracy - a mix of representative and direct democracy favours those

those who spend the most time in this process and have the most expertise

quickly come to dominate it, as intra-organisational quarrels have highlighted

(Bergfeld, 2012; Bieber, 2012).

While it provides small groups which reject leadership a way to solve the issue

practically, leaderships remain generally frowned upon. However, social

movement researchers and trade union scholars could learn a lot from thinking

about intra-organisational forms of leadership in these terms. While rotation

systems are nothing new to labour and social movements, the way of

conceptualising them offers a way of understanding leadership as a set of tasks

which are necessary to progress ones cause. This is confirmed by Katerina

who described a similar process within the network We Are All Greeks (since

renamed Solidarity with the Greek Resistance). The fact that leadership was


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liquid within the group helped less experienced activists and movement

participants to access leadership.

You can see in the process that people who were not active in the pastgot empowered and took leadership themselves, took opportunities and became leaders within that core group of people. How long it lasted isanother thing to discuss. But I can identify two, three, four people withno concrete political background, ideology and with time they got intoand undertook things to do, speaking freely and feeling morecomfortable.

Again, Katerina speaks about a small number of people. Yet in discussions

with activists there was a riddle when you compared how they spoke about

their intra-organisational dynamics with the way they spoke about leadership

at large. The notion of liquid leadership also highlights the way that these

activists create their own theorisations independent from academic discourse,

and thus engaged in the process of theory co-production. The following

chapter turns its attention as to why the forms of trade union and other forms

of leadership are rejected.


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leadership as outlined by Victor above. The hegemonic class can no longer

legitimate itself in the same manner and needs to move to other methods of

rule (such as authoritarianism) or seeks to relegitimise itself in new ways. The

fact that all governing parties whether social democrat or conservative

have sought to balance budgets by cutting public service provision and

infrastructure has exacerbated this crisis of authority. Instead of articulating a

visi

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Leaderless Leaders Southern European Activism in London

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