Convergence in the Making: Transnational Civil Society and the Free Trade Area of the Americas

MARCELO I. SAGUIER

Montreal

Congreso; Annual Convention; 2004

International Studies Association (ISA)

The paper analysis the role Hemispheric Social Alliance network in its efforts to build atransnational coalition between labor unions, social movements, indigenous, environmentaland citizen organizations throughout the Americas to oppose the establishment of a FreeTrade Area of the Americas (FTAA). The prospects of hemispheric solidarity cannot beassumed in face of such heterogeneity of social actors. Drawing from social constructivismand the theory of structuration, the paper will propose a methodological approach to the studyof transnational collective action in the Americas by stressing the political value of buildingdiscourse coalitions and embedding collective expectations. Defying the official meanings ofthe FTAA project, the Hemispheric Social Alliance has been articulating a counterhegemoniccritique to neo-liberal approaches to development in the Western Hemisphere.