ABSTRACT
Over the past fifteen years a range of social movements and institutional initiatives has redefined the possibilities of participatory democracy and meaning of autonomy. In this essay I draw on a subset of these movements to forward an understanding of autonomy as the social production of democratic self-determination. This understanding draws upon three oft-cited scenes for “new autonomous” movements: in Brazil, the Participatory Budget of Porto Alegre; in Argentina, the movements associated with assemblies, recuperated factories and the unemployed (or “piqueteros”); and in Bolivia, the Coordinadora of Cochabamba, and the water utility SEMAPA during and after the Water War of 2000.
