Nowtopian

The World Social Forum celebrated its ninth reunion in Belem, Brazil in the Amazonian state of Pará from January 26 to February 1, 2009. A lot of expectations are piled on to this peculiar event. 91,000 delegates registered, a majority from Brazil, and probably a majority well under 35 years old. But there are hundreds of regular attendees, folks from India, South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Philippines, Japan, Ecuador, Bolivia, France, Senegal, and dozens of other countries, giving the global south an ample representation. Notably few in number were Americans from the U.S., which I considered something of a relief. There are many representatives of major and minor NGOs and a healthy number of old-style socialist militants too.

The event is a big chaotic mess. It took place on two university campuses, the Federal University of Pará and the Federal Rural University of Pará, separated by about a mile and a half that you could theoretically walk, but most people took the free bus, paid a dollar for a regular bus ride, or took a taxi for about 4-6 dollars. There was also a crazy “put-put” ferry system of small wooden boats that ran from one campus to the other on the Guamá River, which was exotic and fun until you arrived and were stuck for a half hour while the skipper maneuvered his boat into the overcrowded dock area, trying to get a tiny corner to let his passengers out. The Forum program was over 135 pages, mostly small print on large newsprint sheets, listing over 2,000 workshops and roundtables and meetings. In fact, the program was deemed useless by many attendees, as the events were listed at the wrong times, wrong places, and most people I spoke with learned that few of the events they were interested in or in some cases, presenting, were listed at all. (This was true of the three workshops held by Ecologia Urbana of Sao Paolo, one of which was my Nowtopia talk, none of which were listed in the official program.)

This banner was planted alongside the road on the UFRA campus, but I never saw any of the folks behind it (typically, you could find signs and indications without information on how to meet the people).

A discussion on urban reform and a much-cited idea, "The Right to the City."

Random snapshot of delegates at Urban Reform talk.

Behind the scenes there are several organizational efforts, an administrative office that runs most of the time from Sao Paolo, and is horribly understaffed and overworked. There is also a mysterious International Committee (IC), which is some kind of self-selecting group with representatives from many parts of the world, and many different organizations, but seems to be unaccountable and lacking in transparency. Apparently this IC makes the decisions about where and when the WSF will be held, and what the theme and scope of it will be, and has some say over how the “movement of movements” is brought together and given space to produce all the workshops and discussions and performances that made up the four days of the event. The Brazilian government says it spent $13 million to support the event with extra security in Belem (the city was chock full of police and military), and in subsidizing the facilities, some travel expenses for various delegations, and more. (Though I was in daily contact with some folks who were insiders, it remained opaque and difficult to understand what exactly the process of self-governance was.)
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