The Battles in Miami: The Fall of the FTAA/ALCA and the Promise of Transnational Movements

In November 2003 thousands of demonstrators staged protests in the streets of Miami while trade ministers from across the hemisphere met for the Eighth Ministerial of the Free Trade Area of the Americas (FTAA). Accounts of these events tend to rehearse a common narrative about mass urban protests that frame such demonstrations as a conflict between proglobalization governments and antiglobalization activists. This narrative focuses on the physicality of the protests without considering their performative qualities, assumes that state practices and dissent are distinct, mutually exclusive realms of action, and takes ‘globalization’ to be a scale-fixed process. We call this narrative into question by pursuing two lines of inquiry. First, we analyze the spatial and discursive practices of three different groups of protesters so as to identify crucial affinities and distinctions in their positions and strategies. Second, we challenge the view that capitalist states are simply ‘proglobalization’ by considering resistance to the US delegation by South American delegations within the FTAA ministerial. From our reading of these events we draw lessons regarding the political and strategic effects of mass urban demonstrations.