The World Social Forum: Another World Might Be Possible

First, I briefly examine the genesis of debate to define the World Social Forum (WSF) as a contributor to the global justice movement (GJM), since its emergence in Brazil in 2001. I then consider Geoffrey Pleyers' argument identifying a central tension within the WSF, and the GJM in general, between actors seeking to achieve non-domination by expressing anti-power subjectivity and those for whom the path to non-domination lay in strategising and designing counter-powers. Describing what transpired at WSF Dakar 2011and debates since, I question Pleyers' classificatory schema as leading to an unhelpful essentialism. That is, identifying a ` two paths' ideal- type and setting out to locate it in the world serves to legitimise one ` tendency' of progressive social movements. By contrast with Pleyers' evenly balanced approach- treating of each ` path' as possessing the same positive and negative qualities, rather than as qualitatively different moments in the practice of opposing domination-I find that what he calls ` the path of subjectivity' might rather be understood as the product of a certain lack of appreciation of the nature of the demands that opposing political tyranny places upon particpants in an organisation or movement.