Becoming political: micropolitics, activism, policy Nick J Fox, Pam Alldred

Workshop Aims and Objectives Aim: To explore the practical application of a micropolitical understanding of politics - in activism, policy or as citizens. Objectives: Establish a model for the micropolitics of politics. Apply a micropolitics of events to current issues. Assess the consequences of this ‘micropolitics of politics’ for practical engagements with the world, in which we are all becoming political.

Deleuze and politics A theory of power and politics is important for social science and social theory. Deleuze and Deleuzians do not talk that much about politics and policy-making (with a few exceptions – see later). The monism at the heart of Deleuzian Spinozism cuts across any notion of ‘another level’ where power or social mechanisms make ‘everyday’ things happen (cf. historical materialism, critical realism). Politics are not a surface reflection of underlying structures. A monist perspective requires that power, resistance and hence politics are explored and understood at the level of the event.

A monism of the political For these reasons, when it comes to exploring politics and power, a materialist sociology needs to shift from a macro-sociology of governments and states, or a search for underlying mechanisms, firmly back to the micropolitics of events. This micropolitical focus is a theme running through materialist scholarship on issues of policy and politics (see next slide). We thus need a ‘micropolitics’ of politics, which can then be used to explore policy and activism.

Towards Deleuzian Politics? Deleuze and Guattari: exploration of the micropolitics (territorializations and aggregations) of the State and its apparatuses of control (Deleuze and Guattari, 1988: 223). Patton (2000: 68): there is a ‘politics of desire’ at the heart of Deleuze and Guattari’s project. DeLanda (2006: 87) explores governments as assemblages, in which some relations legitimate its authority, while others enable its enforcement. Widder (2012: 125) ‘politics begins with micropolitics’.

A DeleuzoGuattarian toolkit We will invoke the following Deleuzian concepts to make sense of politics, policy and activism. Assemblages of non-essentialist relations. Affects and affect economies. Capacities (to think, feel, do, desire). Micropolitics. Lines of flight.

Engagements and assemblages Practice (daily social interactions at work, home and personal relationships) Research Assessment and evaluation Education and training Therapy and healing Policy formulation and application Activism and social transformation Each may be understood differently, as assemblages (e.g. research-assemblage, policy-assemblage).

Micropolitical analysis Each of these engagements has a micropolitics that makes it do what it does. For policy and for activism, we need to ask: What do these different social engagements do? How do they work? What micropolitical movements and intensifications are involved? This can tell us about conflict and consensus between relations in the engagement/assemblage, and how power/resistance is distributed and deployed. It can also suggest how things may be different.

Example: the politics of environmental protection (EP) Instead of seeking structural explanations, ask how EP law/regulation is enacted on a daily basis in public spaces, workplaces and markets, and how it is transgressed?. Explore disparate events as assemblages of relations, to disclose the micropolitics around EP regulation and legislation. Reveals the processual character of EP: policy is not just something that is ‘made’ once and for all. Politics, policy-making and policy implementation are in flux: continually under review and revision in the myriad events that comprise social life. Politics is not a top-down process, but a never-ending dance of events, comprising affects, affect-economies and micropolitical movements.

Exercise 1 Groups work on identifying the affect economies in various scenarios. For example: Development of a sustainable land management policy in a developing country. Countering sexual harassment on a University campus. Implementation of a policy to encourage healthy eating among 5 to 10 year olds. An activist campaign to build and enforce a city’s cycle lanes, to reduce accidents. Parliamentary negotiation of a bill to reduce welfare benefits to rich pensioners. Identify the relations and affects in the assemblage, and the micropolitics these produce. Followed by feedback from the groups.

Exercise 2 The same groups work through a sheet with questions about the approach and how it differs from a traditional view of politics. Followed by feedback from the groups.

Becoming political: micropolitics, activism, policy Reference: Fox, Nick J. and Alldred, P. (2016) Sociology and the New Materialism. London: Sage.