The "symmetrical turn" in the study of colective action

Abstract

Conceptualising and understanding forms of collective action is one of the historic preoccupations of social thought. Good evidence of this can be found in the long line of disputes and polemics that runs through the history of thought about these social phenomena. It shows the difficulty social sciences have faced, and continue to face, when it comes to defining, explaining and delineating a phenomena as ephemeral and liminal as this one.

In this context, I propose that a discussion of the implications an STS focus could have for the analysis of contemporary collective action. The main hypothesis I develop states that the conceptual and methodological baggage that goes with the Actor-Network theory (ANT), and its shaping into what has been called the 'symmetrical turn' in the social sciences, become a fundamental resource for renewing and enriching the analysis of collective action. For this, I will bring together two main contributions: its alternative understanding of social action (to explain the social it is necessary to  leave the exclusive concern with social relations aside and take into account the non-human actors, such as the technical procedures in which they are involved); and its original definition of the “collective” (the collective is basically an aggregate of humans and non-humans, without predefined borders, it is just the relational product created by the constant and precarious commitment between heterogeneous elements). Both contributions, I affirm, allow the opening of an interesting discussion about agency and the possibility of articulating a new theory of collective action that differs from the dominant traditions in that it considers and assumes the heterogeneous and relational character of all social actors, and, as such, it also assumes that all social action is the emergent effect, the interactive product of those hybrid collectives in action. 

To give an example of the fertility of this approach, I focus on an analysis of the ecological disaster that occurred in Doñana National Park, in Spain. As will emerge from my reading of the events, the action of environmentalist groups mobilised and enlisted human and non-human entities to resignify the content of the political activity and weave a globality that was to resist the attempts at localising the disaster operation. An analysis of the actions of environmentalist groups around the Aznalcóllar dumping of toxic waste will demonstrate that their actions were completely dependent on articulations between human and non-human entities. Rivers, dunes, birds and diggers, elements that until now have not been considered by social scientists, were key to the articulation of the protest, decisive for the redefinition of what occurred, vital to pushing the demand for certain future policies for the affected area.