This is a collection of questions, links, and readings on the topic of democratic activism and its relation to the World Wide Web. Historians and theorists of the practice of democracy frequently stress the importance of the public sphere as both an imagined and literal place in which democratic participation and activism flourish. What happens when the public sphere is extended to include cyberspace? Is cyberspace truly part of the public sphere or does cyberspace ask us to redefine or revisit the concept of the public sphere?

The Questions and Activities in this platform take students to sites that offer historical narratives of activism and typologies of democratic activism. The platform also directs students to sites that aim to be activist tools in and of themselves. Finally, the platform offers links to sites and resources that explain how activist communities are produced in cyberspace, communities interested in local and national democratic practice and communities that cross or defy the borders between nation-states in order to respond to current forms of globalization.

Questions and Activities

1. How do activist artists such as Coco Fusco, Michael Moore, and Super Barrio Man make arguments about democracy, difference, and globalization? Why do you think they feel compelled to perform outlandlish, ironic, and unusual protests? Do they use the public sphere for combinations of art and protest? When their work is available online, does that mean that cyberspace has simply become an extension of the public sphere? Or would you describe the cyberspace versions of their work differently?
   
   
2. When you visit archival and historical sites, what do you learn about attempts to globalize democracy? Or attempts to make globalization work in the interests of local democracy rather than in the interests of transnational formations that supercede and erode local democratic power? How have local movements to resist global coercion used cyberspace? For instance, use the site, Zapatistas in Cyberspace to find examples of how the Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, has used the Internet.
   
   
3. Explore activist sites that try to affect national and international policies towards globalization. When you explore a site, consider some of these questions: what argument does the site make about globalization and democracy? Does the site claim to represent the interests of a specific community? How is that community defined? To what extent does that community only exist virtually or in cyberspace? To what extent does the site ask its members and allies to use the Internet in their activism? How do they use the Internet? Notice that some sites are aimed at teachers, such as the Virtual Trade Mission site. What role does education play in debates about democracy, difference, and globalization?
   
   Also look at the activist cookbooks in the set of activist sites. Why are activist organizations using the cookbook genre? What is the role of irony and literary play in activism that addresses debates about democracy, difference, and globalization?
   
   

Web-Text Connections

On the Web		In Beyond Borders
1.	Performance Art sites Coco Fusco homepage. A bilingual site that includes, among many interesting images, publicity for El Espacio Aglutinador: Cuba's only ongoing independent artists' space since 1994. Fusco also has a page about her performances, one of which is "Sudaca Enterprises," a series of corporate protests and performance art pieces similar to Michael Moore's tactics. Michael Moore's homepage, sponsored by performance artist/activist Michael Moore. Sites about Super Barrio Man, a performance artist and globalization activist: "Defender of Justice: Super Barrio Roams Mexico City"; Lucha Libre: Super Barrio	1.	The performance art sites pair well with readings in Chapter 5 by Guillermo Gómez-Peña, Gloria Anzaldúa, Audre Lorde, and Salmon Rushdie. Because they are creative and unique approaches to current debates and crisis, they also work well with readings from earlier chapters, such as Anna Deavere Smith's "Fires in the Mirror," Mary Louise Pratt's "Arts of the Contact Zone," and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, "Letter from Birmingham Jail." Because these artists and activists use visual images in their live performances and in their virtual performances, many of the images in Border Visions would also work well, especially Peter Menzel's photographs.
2.	Archival/Historical sites The NGO Forum on Women, in Beijing The UN Fourth World Conference on Women World Conference Against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance (2002) Zapatistas in Cyberspace	2.	One approach to this set of activities and Websites is to read accounts of earlier moments of globalization (moments in history in which two or more cultures, economies, political systems, languages, etc., came into contact and became inextricably connected). Several readings in Chapters 3 and 4 would work well: Richard White's "The Middle Ground," Wong Sam and Assistant's "An English-Chinese Phrase Book," Myra Jehlen's "Papers of Empire," Thomas and Crow's "Maps, Projections, and Ethnocentricity," and Patricia Nelson Limerick's "Adventures of the Frontier in the Twentieth Century." Some of the images in Border Visions also comment on earlier moments of globalization, such as "Damn! There Goes the Neighborhood." Another approach is to read pieces in chapter five about cyberspace and democracy, such as Howard Rheingold's "Disinformocracy," and compare and contrast them with the Zapatistas' use of global cyberspace to empower their local democratic activism.
3.	Activist Sites The Activist Cookbook (United for Fair Economy) The Melbourne Activists' Cookbook Center for Women's Global Leadership Council of Canadians (NAFTA critique) Coalition for Justice in the Maquiladoras HRI: Human Rights Internet International Indian Treaty Council/Consejo Internacional de Tratados Indios (pan-American and bilingual site; aims to hold U.N. accountable for its declarations) International Forum on Globalization Public Citizen Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan Third World Network Transnational Institute UNITE Virtual Trade Mission (corporate-sponsored site) Women's Edge: Economic Development and Global Equality	3.	Rheingold's essay is an excellent springboard for this set of questions and Websites. Additionally, readings about current forms of globalization and conflict in Chapter 5 are important and directly relevant: William Greider's "One World, Ready or Not," Benjamin Barber's "Jihad vs. McWorld," and bell hooks's "Love as the Practice of Freedom."

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