Abstract

GONZALEZ-MONTERO, Sebastián Alejandro. How to Change the World? Social Movements and Fact. Palabra Clave [online]. 2012, vol.15, n.2, pp.280-317. ISSN 0122-8285.

A contemporary version of social movements should emphasize the possibilities of creating resistances that focus on the prospect of achieving other lifestyles or modes of living. The authors propose a factual or event-based (événementiel) perspective of social movements that leaves no room for culturalist connotations founded on the assumption that emancipation processes manifest de-identification in a search for ways to achieve other, "better" identities. If an attempt at a factual or event-based definition of social movements is worthwhile, it is because we harbor the hope they offer a better fate. What matters is the freedom and the collective creation of ethical alternatives concerning how to build another life. The idea is to defend an event-based approach as the basis for understanding social movements. The question is: What policy implications or consequences can be drawn from considering social movements, assuming they reflect a cruelty in life and an inevitable violence that breaks worlds apart, but demands the construction of others?

Keywords : Fact; social change; social movements; social evolution.

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