ABSTRACT
Is there anything left to say about transnational activism and the alterglobal movement? It may seem doubtful, given all the research that has piled up on the topic, the publication of a handbook on World Social Forums (Smith et al., 2011), and even a certain weariness from watching the forums go by, one after another – and even if the World Social Forum (WSF) process does not equate with the whole alter-global movement. But before we conclude that the topic has been exhausted, we should keep in mind two things. First, the feeling of weariness is mainly found among Western observers (journalists and academics), who have indeed been the most influential in drawing attention to this public issue. It may in fact reflect the geographical displacement of alter-globalization from its birthplace in the Latin world to other regions of the globe, particularly Africa. Hence, the intrinsic interest of studying the WSF held in Dakar in January 2011. Second, the spate of research is now dated; it dried up around 2007, when the cause was declared to be dead and buried – again from a Western-centric point of view. As often happens, the epitaph had a performative effect, but it was misleading because, all in all, the alter-global cause was still very much alive and researchers were the ones who, apart from a few exceptions, had abandoned it in midstream. Was this a case of postcolonial occultation? In any event, ten years after the first forum, it was necessary to pick up the research where it was left off, on a continent belatedly incorporated into alter-global networks but crucial to the production of their discourse.
