Autonomist Feminism

The concept of biopolitical labour, introduced by Hardt and Negri in the Empire trilogy, seems to be the most promising for contemporary anticapitalist struggles, as it brings to light the fact that life as such, in its various manifestations, is a productive force. However, it is precisely this all-encompassing character and universality that is the source of the controversies it raises and of its potential limitations. One of the most important and controversial aspects of Hardt and Negri's stance in Empire is the thesis of the unification of the social factory, caused by the passage from Fordism to post-Fordism. The hegemony of immaterial/biopolitical labour – a form of labour that has as its basis cooperation and communication – constitutes the autonomy of the production process and the unity of the working class or multitude that provide the objective conditions for communism (Hardt and Negri, 2000: 31-34; Hardt and Negri, 2004: 107-115). The power of living labour is the consequence of its status as the most advanced form of production that renders obsolete other forms, deprived of its political potential. This nexus of the notions of hegemony, degrees of advancement of the forms of labour and productivity of life itself is so tightly intertwined that it's not possible to use one of the concepts separately. And this is precisely what should be achieved, because not all parts of this nexus are equally useful.

A presente pesquisa tem como ponto de partida inquietações surgidas a partir do panorama complexo onde se inserem os feminismos hoje. Buscando alargar a compreensão dos movimentos sociais contemporâneos, a tese tem como objetivo investigar a produção de sujeitos políticos a partir do 'rolê feminista' em grandes centros urbanos brasileiros. Assim, são analisadas formas recentes de politização do gênero e da sexualidade, tendo como objeto empírico uma rede informal
de ativistas jovens auto-referenciada como rolê feminista, cujas relações são orientadas por ideário mais amplo associado à autonomia e horizontalidade. Em linhas gerais, busquei indagar a produção desse sujeito, considerando as (re)configurações do campo feminista, os processos de renovação geracional e a contestação a formatos de participação tidos como institucionalizados. Para tal, considera-se o contexto que se desenrola na virada do milênio, e especialmente no período pós-2010 no país. Se tratando de uma pesquisa de caráter etnográfico, o trabalho de campo consistiu principalmente em seguir as ativistas e, com elas, acompanhar a circulação de sujeitos, objetos, corporalidades e discursos. A maior parte da observação se voltou
aos eventos que perfazem o rolê, como feiras de publicações feministas, ocupações de praças e espaços públicos, festivais feministas, lançamentos de livros e fanzines, mostra de vídeo, shows, além de alas ou blocos em manifestações de rua. Ao longo da tese, explorei os significados atribuídos à autonomia, a centralidade do corpo e da experiência em um ativismo de caráter prefigurativo, e as mudanças nos processos de hifenização do sujeito e seus regimes de
visibilidade.

Despite the importance that autonomist feminism has played in the development of autonomist politics and struggles it is commonly relegated to little more than a glorious footnotes of figures emerging out of operaisti thought (such as Antonio Negri and Paolo Virno). Organizing around gender, affective labor, and issues of reproduction posed numerous important questions to forms of class struggle that focused exclusively on the figure of the waged industrial worker. Revolts of housewives, students, the unwaged, and farm workers led to a rethinking of notions of labor, the boundaries of workplace, and effective strategies for class struggles: they enacted a critical transformation in the social imaginary of labor organizing and struggle. By drawing on the history and of these struggles (such as the various Wages for Housework Campaigns and current organizing such as Precarias a la Deriva) and ideas of those involved (such as Silvia Federici, Leopoldina Fortunati, Mariarosa Dallacosta, and Alisa Del Re) this paper will explore some lessons that can be learned from these a(e)ffective insurgency. Taking seriously the questions posed by these struggles are extremely important because as Alisa Del Re argues, attempting to refuse and reduce forms of imposed labor and exploitation without addressing the realms of social reproduction and housework amounts to building a notion of utopia upon the continued exploitation of female labor. Furthermore the often cramped positions that organizing forms of affective labor and social reproduction (housewives, sex workers, etc) occupies becomes all the more important as these processes are further integrated into the composition of contemporary capitalism. How does one refuse caring labor? Strategies for organizing around affective labor, what Precarias a la Deriva have called a “very careful strike,” are important to learn from to find ways “not a high productivity of domestic labor but a higher subversiveness in the struggle.” (Dallacosta/James)

The most recent capitalist offensive has sparked a vibrant new wave of struggles over the question of social reproduction. Water, housing, education, to name only a few, are now decisive sites of confrontation, and activists across the globe experiment with new tactics, forms of struggle, and models of organization.

In some ways, our renewed focus on social reproduction shares interesting parallels with the “Italian Revolution” of 1968-1980, the most radical upheaval in postwar Western Europe. For while originally firmly anchored to the struggles of the factory proletariat, many movements began to wage a multitude of struggles beyond the point of production, developing class power on what was called the terrain of social reproduction.