No-Expo Network: multiple subjectivities, online communication and right to the city

New possibilities of partecipation supported by technological devices favoured the convergence of individuals who in the past probably would never have shared common actions. These conditions redefine possibilities of confrontation (more based on dialogue at distance and on the definition of a common minimum frame), dynamics of adhesion to protest (allowing multiple paths and interactions), and choice of actions to take. The first concept to rediscuss is “collective identity”: basing on Melucci’s analysis (1984; 2000), McDonald (2002) underlines the necessity to overstep the relation between contemporary social movements and political dimension, to better focus on personal partecipation. This radical transformation comes about in the context of Network Society (Castells 2003), inviting individuals to react against deindividualization processes (Touraine 2000), through subjectification paths (Dubar 2000): so, in contemporary forms of protest, individual dimension is both an expressive form and part of collective action (Micheletti, McFarland 2010). The challenge to find “other codes” (Melucci 1984; 1996) can’t no more revolve around the dichotomy "us/them"; nowaday the main actor is no longer a “us”, but a set of many “I”, none of which should withdraw from its value system (Alteri 2014). In fact, if “overlapping membership” (della Porta 2007) is not a novelty, it’s however relevant the emergence of more and more variegated networks of subjectivities, promoters of practices and alternative scenarios (Alteri, Raffini 2014). In this situation, it becomes increasingly important to assess the capacity of involvement through social networks, their ability to attract attention of political and mediatical sphere, and to maintain internal networks of solidarity (Bennet, Segerberg 2011). Urban spaces acquire new significances as protest sites because of the centrality of new digital technologies in the organization of mobilization: they become site for meetings and performances (complementary to virtual discussions), sponsors for social and political new realities (Sassen 2011), where it’s possible to re-build existences not colonized by economical and political power (Lefebvre 1996). Claiming the “right to city” obliges to rediscuss traditional concepts of citizenship and representative democracy, whereas capitalist devices try to build specific narratives that cannot harm the expansion of capitalism itself: in this sense Occupy Movements (Wall Street and Gezi, for example) and Arab Springs ideally refer to a “right to city” that, according to Harvey (2008), must be at the same time “working slogan and political ideal”. Starting from all previous considerations (that will be deepened in the first part of the paper), we will then ananlyse a specific mobilization, against Expo 2015, in which different movement areas (Melucci 1984) will partecipate, in line with “movement of movements” (Andretta et al. 2002) heritage. This mobilization began in 2007, but, while persisting in a constant tension between latency and visibility (Melucci 1996), will know its most significant moments during next months (especially from April and for the duration of the event: May-October 2015). Therefore, we want to inquire multiple subjectivities being part of the protest, plurality of critical analysis of the imaginary promoted by Expo project, and different proposals of urban spaces’ reappropriation by No-Expo movement.