ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the asymmetries – of power, of access to resources and leadership– at work between and amongst transnational social movements. On the one hand, the purpose of this chapter is that of analyzing the actual structures of inequality that emerge among the members of the alter-globalist movements. On the other, it investigates the explicit strategies deployed by the movements themselves in order to deal with, and tackle, these inequalities between participants. By looking at the 2011 WSF of Dakar, the chapter offers an analysis of the “division of labor” – i.e. the distribution of social roles – within the alter-globalist movement, and of the interactions between activists and organizations from the North and the South. In order to achieve this goal, it considers the cases of North-South partnerships between European and African organizations, as well as cases of South-South cooperation by looking at the forms of engagement between Latin American activists and their African counterparts.
