ABSTRACT
In looking for figures of resistance, one is drawn to the space beyond hierarchical assemblages, where alternative forms of life exist or come into being. This is, on the one hand, the space of the excluded, of the people and peoples deemed unincorporable or not worth incorporating by the world-system, or consigned to its margins; on the other hand, it is the space of the network form as a form that contradicts, escapes and exceeds the hierarchical forms of the world-system, the state and capital. This figure, the ‘social logic of the excluded’ so to speak, can be viewed from three different angles: as the excluded, defined in negation of the dominant system; as the logic of indigenous or non-state society, defined as a specific type of social form directed against the state and capital; and as the affinity-network form, a specific social form distinct from the hierarchical forms of state and capital. The term ‘network’ has, of course, been used a lot more widely (e.g. Granovetter 1973; Castells 2000; Barabasi 2003), and not always with the same transformative undertones. Not all networks are entirely part of the logic of the excluded. Indeed, Hillary Wainwright has argued that the left has been behind capitalist managers in realising ‘the creativity of chaos’ and knowledge networks and creative agents; horizontal networks as source of strength of new movement (Wainwright 2005). We maintain that the world-system, capital and the state all require hierarchies, and that none of them can become entirely networked (see above, pp. 42-3). However, each of them can – and does – incorporate variously ‘domesticated’ networks as part of its internal structure, as roots and branches from its trunk. These are what Deleuze and Guattari (1987), and later Day (2005), term ‘radicle’ as opposed to ‘radical’ networks. Some of these will be explored below (pp. 203-8), as reactive networks, patronage networks and exclusive networks. Others can be mentioned briefly, as the forms which have lured the gullible into interpreting the system itself as no longer hierarchical: the adoption of decentred networks as a strategy of transnational corporations, complete with anti-hierarchical strategies such as outsourcing and guerrilla marketing; the operation of the network form among different fractions of
the (hierarchically constructed) elite, as business networking or as networks of global cities; the emergence of the networked or ‘rhizome state’ as a syncretic form whereby states in marginal locations fuse with diffuse, shadowy power-holders in society; and the model of networked warfare associated with authors such as Arquilla and Ronfeldt (1997), whereby states seek to deploy networks as the only effective way to fight networks. All of these hybrid expressions of the network form contain some aspects of the affinitynetwork as abstract machine, combined with elements of other abstract machines such as the state and capital. We would maintain that they constitute apparatuses of capture, in that the affinity-network form remains subordinate to a dominant hierarchical element or ‘trunk’. A further qualification is needed regarding the relationship between the affinity-network as abstract machine and the variety of types of concrete networks. An alert reader will notice that we sometimes discuss the affinitynetwork form entirely in terms of autonomous movements, which predominantly express this logic, and sometimes also include other kinds of networks such as reactive networks. This is because of the tension between levels of analysis. While the transformative potential of the network form resides in the affinity-network as a specific abstract logic, and not for instance in the reactive networks which restore aspects of a trunk, the latter also mobilise as concrete assemblages some of the techniques of the affinity-form, and enjoy some of its advantages. The successes of reactive networks can therefore be indicative of the advantages of the network-form, even though it is only one of the components in a reactive network assemblage. Discussion of network social forms has suddenly become rather fashionable. Most of the discussion focuses on contemporary, high-tech social movements, which rely heavily on computer networks and other high-tech communication networks such as mobile phones. Recent studies by the Rand Corporation for instance have emphasised the growing importance of ‘netwar’ – struggles between or against social networks (Arquilla and Ronfeldt 2001). Theorists sympathetic to social resistance such as Graeme Chesters make similar claims, attributing the ability of anticapitalist protesters to mobilise effectively without leadership to a ‘swarm logic’ based on distributed network forms of power (Chesters 2006). The technological aspect of this view is taken furthest by leftists such as Hardt and Negri (2004), who view the network form of protest movements as an outgrowth of changes in production, of the primacy of ‘immaterial’ labour and the rise of a new kind of capitalism based on network organisation. Where this leftist reading goes wrong, however, is in linking the network form primarily to high-tech or ‘advanced’ capitalist conditions. It is certainly the case that high-tech protest groups and countercultural movements use network forms, and that technologies allowing network construction are used in this construction. Hackers, open-source programmers and online protest campaigns are examples of network social forms. It is also the case,
however, that similar non-hierarchical horizontal networks arise in almost every situation where people try to mobilise or cooperate outside the framework of the state and of domination. Hunter-gatherers and other indigenous societies, peasant movements, and the urban poor of the shanty-towns and ghettos are among the most obvious examples. In relation to indigenous societies, Rohrlich-Leavitt noted that ‘gathererhunters are generally non-territorial and bilocal; reject group aggression and competition; share their resources freely; value egalitarianism and personal autonomy in the context of group cooperation; and are indulgent and loving with children’ (Zerzan 1994). Where distinct groups exist, they often relate in a networked way – the gift networks of the Trobriand Islands and the extended kinship networks of the Lakota ‘nation’ being two examples. One characteristic of such societies is the non-exclusive nature of attachments and affinities, and hence the absence of an overarching identity. Even in the strongest kinds of segmentary lineage systems which come closest to fixed group identity, the existence of extra-familial affinities operates as a restriction on ingroup-outgroup patterns, ensuring some degree of social openness (Barclay 1992). Larissa Lomnitz (1977) studies survival and mutual aid networks in Latin American shanty-towns, revealing that kinship and neighbourhood relations form an entire informal economy enabling a layer of excluded people to survive on the periphery of major cities by means of horizontal relations. Partha Chatterjee (1993) shows how the formation of Indian national identity leaves a trail of ‘fragments’ – identities based on class, caste, ethnicity, region, religion and so on – that provide the basis for entire areas of social life organised beyond the reach of the state, in private associations and homes. The power of the state is thus very much partial, constrained by and always at risk from the subcultures and countercultures emerging from the space beyond its reach. Hecht and Simone (1994) provide a series of examples from African societies of horizontal social forms that operate invisibly to inflect, undermine and sometimes overthrow states and formal institutions.
