When I first came across Stuart Hall’s engagement with Gramsci in his analysis of Margaret Thatcher’s struggle for power, I was excited by how much his theoretical framework provided new perspectives to reflect on my own experiences of social and political struggles. Here was somebody who analysed social change in its contradictory fluidity as something in the making. Not from ‘out there’, but as someone acting on it. It haunted me how valuable his approach was for understanding the unexpected outcomes and victories of social movements – not only for a better understanding of history and society, but also with a view to actively partaking in these movements and shape them.
In this paper, I will demonstrate the strength of Hall’s approach for highlighting the chances of social movements to achieve their alternative goals although they fight from a position of weakness against powerful adversaries. I have been (and still am) an active part of the two movements I want to explore. First, I will discuss the success of the squatters and their allies in defending ‘their’ houses in Hamburg’s St. Pauli Hafenstraße, where I still live, in the 1980s and 90s, and, second, the current2 struggle of the refugee group ‘Lampedusa in Hamburg’ for the right to stay in Germany despite the ‘Dublin’ regulations which force refugees to stay in those countries where they first arrived. Both of these struggles had to engage with and counter stereotypical representations. Both of them, as I will show, started by addressing “immediate troubles” and led to a deeper understanding that another world is not only needed, but also possible – “an entirely new form of civilization” (Hall 1987: 21). Therefore, I think it is worthwhile to engage with them.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:DRESDEN/oai:qucosa:de:qucosa:32273 |
| Date | 29 November 2018 |
| Creators | Borgstede, Simone |
| Publisher | Universität Leipzig |
| Source Sets | Hochschulschriftenserver (HSSS) der SLUB Dresden |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion, doc-type:article, info:eu-repo/semantics/article, doc-type:Text |
| Rights | info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess |
| Relation | urn:nbn:de:bsz:15-qucosa2-322633, qucosa:32263 |
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