Blockchain Papers

Marianna Fotaki, Hamid Foroughi

This article interrogates the idea of leadership in a decentralized organization, using Extinction Rebellion (XR) as a case study. Through close observation of this environmental movement, we problematize the notion of leaderless organizations and question whether the idea of a hierarchy- and power-free ‘decentralized organization’ is a fantasmatic endeavour. Psychoanalytic analysis of discussions between XR members following two disruptive actions during XR’s International Rebellion in October 2019 reveals that these actions temporarily provoked members to question the attainability and effectiveness of XR’s so-called ‘leaderless autonomous organization’. This article contributes to psychoanalytic studies of leadership and to the social movements literature and argues that the power relations present in any form of organized endeavour must be recognized in order to develop effective and democratic activism.

Mathijs van de Sande

In 2011 and the ensuing years, the world witnessed a global wave of various “occupy movements,” from the Spanish 15-M and the Greek anti-austerity protests of 2011 to Occupy Wall Street (OWS), and from the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul to Nuit Debout in Paris. Inspired by the Arab Spring earlier that year—and by the iconic image of an occupied Tahrir Square in particular—protesters in different parts of the world took possession of public spaces in order to oppose the austerity measures of their governments, to challenge the power of financial industries and economic elites, and to voice their widely shared experience of a democratic deficit. I emphasize from the outset that there are many, and often very substantial, demographic, cultural, economic, and political differences among these various occupy movements and among the contexts in which they intervened. There is thus no particular reason to assume, as some enthusiastic commentators suggested at the time, that they were all exponents of a single global movement (Hardt & Negri, 2012; Mason, 2011). But it is also clear, on the other hand, that they often expressed a strong sense of solidarity with each other, and referred to each another as important sources of inspiration (Graeber, 2013, p. 237). Notwithstanding the many differences between these movements, they did share at least a number of important points in common. What, then, did these movements have in common—next to the obvious but important fact that they all involved the occupation of public space (Harvey, 2012, pp. 161–162)? First, in most cases conventional political organizations or institutions played a minor role, if any, in these mass mobilizations. None was spearheaded by established political parties or politicians (Tormey, 2015, p. 8) and they often had a strikingly diverse composition (Juris, 2012, p. 265). Most categorically refused to negotiate or even engage with any representative institutions or public bodies (Klein, 2011). One possible explanation for this, second, is that many of these movements had strong horizontalist aspirations (Sitrin, 2012) and advocated direct or participatory forms of politics, organization and decision-making. Finally, not only did they propose an alternative view of democracy, but they also put it in practice: a significant aspect of their shared repertoire was that these movements sought to prefigure a radical form of democracy (Bray, 2013, p. 190; Douzinas, 2013, pp. 158–160; Hardt & Negri, 2017, pp. 274–275; Maeckelbergh, 2016; Pickerill & Krinsky, 2012; Smucker, 2014; Van de Sande, 2013; Yates, 2015). By organizing in general assemblies and spokes-councils, for example, they tried to realize, in the here and now, the kind of radical social change that they aspired to bring about on the long term (Graeber, 2013). These movements’ refusal to engage with existing parties and institutions, their horizontalist or direct democratic aspirations, and their attempt to prefigure these ideals in their general assemblies and consensual decision-making procedures, have all contributed to the widespread idea that they were opposed to any form of political representation. Indeed, many prominent political philosophers and social movement theorists have promoted this view of recent occupy movements. My claim, however, is that this reading is too quick. Not only is it far from certain that all these movements dismissed political representation tout court, but upon closer inspection it becomes clear that both in their rhetoric and practical organization they employed various forms of representation and of making representative claims. In fact, these movements also played a significant representative on their own part, which remains undertheorized in the current debate. What concepts of representation are implied here? And what lessons for democracy, strategy, and social movement politics may we derive from them? To answer these questions and to shift the academic debate on these occupy movements, I reconstruct two concepts of representation that can be encountered in the practices and rhetoric of occupy movements such as OWS and the 15-M movement. I focus on one concept of representation in particular that I think is the key to an adequate understanding of contemporary social movements, but that is not sufficiently theorized in the existing literature on these movements: namely, the idea of synecdochal representation, where one of the constituent parts stands for a larger whole. To address these questions I make the following argumentative steps. In Section 2, I briefly review the contemporary academic debate on occupy movements and their relation to political representation. Should the statements and practices of movements such as OWS indeed be regarded as a rejection of representation, as both their critics and advocates claim, or is their repertoire with at least some forms of In Section I to the academic literature on political representation and it is far from obvious what representation from on representation, I two different of representation, which are both representation as on the one hand, and representation as or larger on the In Section I these to the politics of recent occupy movements, and both are as as in their practices and In Section I the concept of representation as on a particular form of representation that I think is the key to understanding of recent occupy movements and their representative role, but that remains undertheorized in the current namely, synecdochal representation. I to the of employed this concept at various in but a of concept of synecdochal representation and political I it in the of recent occupy movements in Section the of the occupy movements in 2011 and the following years, their and the among and is to these movements or their and or to their of representative democracy in current My is if we are to and this and political we to a and of representation and the political that it may the of movements as Occupy Wall Street is an in we can no make as we for change in the power and we can no to their we are a of what democracy this to one another to is a to and the that direct we the power p. many of the statements and by these occupy movements, is to various to many political philosophers and social movement it that OWS representative to the image of democracy a direct or participatory form of democracy, which is with representative democracy in current One may to this that the for a radical or participatory form of democracy was expressed even in their to prefigure such in 2013, p. p. with consensual decision-making and forms of public (Bray, 2013; 2012; and alternative also to their own to in the occupy with of 2015, p. and pp. & 2013). In these movements tried to their of a democratic in the here and de Sande, 2013, p. is what democracy another prominent by these occupy movements, thus can be referred to the forms and practices that these movements the as OWS it in their their occupied as a in all the it in the and even are not as of political but as of a general rejection of the of representation. & p. here is that representative democracy is an categorically the from in the political (Hardt & Negri, pp. p. democracy, on the other hand, a horizontalist of organization and a rejection of democracy and the of that such of (Sitrin, 2012, p. also Mason, p. horizontalist or that the occupy movements expressed in both their practices and rhetoric is thus not in with political the two are this is shared by some of these movements’ most prominent for example, that their to engage with any representative institutions or a of the as a of a of and by pp. a their horizontalist aspirations a understanding of in general p. also pp. that a democracy political are the of and representative p. What these movements to is the fact that are no to the representative institutions and I with these critics that it is and to democratic on a rejection of all representative p. I not think that recent occupy movements such as OWS and the categorically any form of political I that their political repertoire was of making all forms of representative claims. are we to make sense of these movements’ practices and such as are the is what democracy or even at least some concept of political representation 2015, p. In the of this I a concepts of representation that I think are to these movements. But briefly on the various and of What is we at the term is employed both in academic and political it may that it and in of these various of the term representation are but their and are very p. these various two different that can be as a to that in other p. 2013, pp. pp. In and for example, representation may be as or What is in this is the particular relation in which a particular representative it a a or a or even in to this form of representation as idea of or the idea of of or in the and the idea of as a on in with the of p. representation as for an this is not the in any a certain of is to as the of political representation on the of a representative and to the or of a particular or that both and at a certain from the In the of representative as a representative be to one the other p. concept of representation is for in understanding of representative all the also have a term as or is in the in for a or or a of can be to other or larger to such forms of representation as not a or a it to what a representative an understanding of what a representative it a an or a it be to p. Spanish or were the in many recent occupy to this representation, and to both concepts of both as for and in the academic debate on political representation the two to be both at a and a practical there are important to a between these forms of representation. the most significant between representation as for and representation as for is that the often an and a certain of between the representative and the In the of the thus be the is to the as in the on the other hand, a often to to make it by their it is not in p. is a is to not to an that be or bring that did not as to is not a of to or to what it stands and what to a be as to as p. of in other is a that also the of certain or that which is in a relation of representation not this relation as There is no or the particular or that representation as for that there is an and can be in a or representation as a for that the not it is the of a representative or relation pp. the political of representation as for is that representation as for is of no political theorists of political representation, such as and have that representation as for an important in the of political and p. that making of or of what is to be is a aspect of political By a particular image of or what they to this or not that this no is a But the political in the of making of p. representation as for is an pp. p. any representative is of own in that it be in a particular in it and the other the of and from such of as for thus can be as a of & p. is a political one may there is a between various possible To one or be at the of to put it in and any representation to is to the of to the of to a & p. then, did the practices of recent occupy movements such as the and OWS indeed of any form of political many of their advocates and critics And if can these various forms of political representation as for and for be in their rhetoric and we have the of recent occupy movements is often as of a of political representation tout & p. Hardt & Negri, 2012, pp. 2013, pp. 2015, p. is clear that these movements were of representative democracy in current But that we have between different forms of political representation, we may their politics indeed a rejection of all forms of One important of the politics of these occupy movements, to is that both in their rhetoric and practices they sought to representative democracy with a direct or of general forms of and horizontalist decision-making are to a of what democracy be (Graeber, 2013, p. may that these movements were at least very of representation as idea that some may be to and in But if we at both their rhetoric and their these movements to have a understanding of representation as for example, the OWS at the of Section this a between democracy and representative democracy as we it it also for their to the p. the that there are to for or on of the in a or sufficiently democratic OWS a for in this in of the OWS p. that both political parties in the the we the are of the it that these occupy movements often employed various forms of political representation in example, a the occupation of general was as the most important of decision-making by a (Bray, 2013). be by from each was among the of each and each had a to voice only the (Graeber, 2013, p. to these were not in the sense they the of the (Bray, 2013, p. But it be to that or an is a form of representation as for that an and a very of forms of representation are by no with organization or even decision-making. and radical democratic theorists have that radical democracy various forms of or 2015, p. pp. p. pp. the of forms of very to the of and 2012, p. 2014; Smucker, 2017, pp. is not such can be to an but they can be and These movements’ with and participatory forms of organization may have to a different idea of democracy, but this a of representation as What is many of these movements’ have to engage with conventional forms of politics their had to an One obvious is the Spanish which in the of the 15-M movement and had at both the and the & pp. and this to an was no a 2015, pp. is that even some involved with the 15-M movement have to an particular at the In the Spanish for example, took in the of a public which in the of & as as (Graeber, also pp. are representative in the is to of political to of and thus a direct 2017, p. widespread that the politics of these movements the very of representation thus to be & p. closer inspection it that many forms of representation as for were employed by these movements. that their radical democratic practices and be as a for and direct and participatory representation to the current of the 2017, p. there is also a to be not only did these movements’ and organization certain forms of representation as but in some they also an important representative in their own such as OWS and the did not or to any or to or make on of a larger of But they did as political in at least some To this, however, we to to the second, concept of representation that I namely, representation as or politics of a social movement any form of representation is and an important not only a or to the but also derive a sense of and from the most may any form of representation, not that their own or their stands for recent occupy movements were no to to the OWS the is of representative democracy in current But the also that the p. And this the in political least that the this stands for a and not in the of in Park 2015, p. can be of other prominent movement such as are the and a strong representative that to a larger of and not to are at the of 2015, p. practices of these occupy movements implied a representative the general alternative decision-making and all for My claim, is that the particular form of political representation, is in the and rhetoric of these occupy movements. representation as this form of representation is not with their radical democratic aspirations or as many social movement theorists and political philosophers In fact, I that it is it is implied in their direct democratic In the of this I to a particular concept of representation as for that is at namely, a synecdochal concept of representation. I this particular form of representation is key to an understanding of the recent occupy movements. as for a representation as of or of all other or larger as this form of representation also a political is of in the of representation as for is a where a representative to or and on of the representation as for is a a movement from to and a one from representative to p. also p. is also a political in order to any and thus at the of & pp. of political representation, often to this concept of representation as a for 2013, p. In of political representation, on the image of the a form of that other such as and the differences between and to are established & p. this of an in of representation p. a of the to this are this concept can be to the representative and practices of recent occupy movements, we thus to reconstruct the often of the in of representation. But what the it is from other of such as the and the and it is in a of political representation. may be regarded as a of 2015, p. we by between and the is on or the of a example, in radical it is to to as is a the in not to relation between and is on or of their of this is or is is that are In on the other hand, the relation between the and the be by a particular are Wall Street or the as to the financial or to a particular of the In both cases there is a direct and relation between is as the of financial the in the but the term as a not this a relation in that it is on a But there is one in a synecdochal relation the is a of the larger that it a such as have to or the of as a to are of a and are a of their an to the between and p. are on But this also that representation can be established only as a or relation p. it is on many different can be to a single To to the many not from the may be to the of There is no particular reason the between the and to such an established in and have the But the fact is in order to as a had to these other possible and thus had to as the only or most for the to be it is one among many is very different for the as we have is on a that as a in a relation is to the that it and the relation between thus for with a of politics what the or can be in to the the of a not on to other possible it remains a far as is however, this also that the only a for and In a of a particular representation of upon the of as a representation of as a whole. own and an p. and of a social that remains an pp. with however, is that they are on one of many possible and that the of one relation not at the of we was the with thus the that is to a political representation pp. To a to some of p. p. is where the of the becomes a particular to this de the as of the that an between and p. p. from this the is not a of the it a between these other in that it a relation between and that is particular that upon the p. to or for a larger is the only that this p. & p. to as a synecdochal on to be as the only at the most obvious and representation. synecdochal representation the of a pp. an image of the for by a concept of the that be or even possible p. but that as the of this and thus to it as far as is this is the of the forms the for understanding of political it one representative or relation can a larger at the time, it p. 2015, pp. these and not as are as two different of this in a have a particular shared or can be and in own they a their p. their is by the long as this remains an it not to a But that this is only one among many different claims. that of other or have also this may to the of a social their shared experience of or their with the in and a sense of which is by a shared understanding or of the which as p. of a social not only these but to a different of their to the of a larger of in which all the in of their to what we an p. Notwithstanding the differences between these and their particular or their shared experience of and their the of a social to a or between these various and of however, to in a particular a of these various not be representation of an only possible if a particular own also as a the as a p. also pp. By of public or for example, one particular to the thus for a of or First, the of the two of and a certain between is the of the in this they to be the of at a and a of in the of a the term becomes the of a it no the of an be in all and becomes the of a social only is the of that in a pp. What we is a particular or to for a at the in to What this however, is that the of a also the of or claims. here not only the or of an but a a particular of or other and and a view of these be In it to for a political then, can concept of synecdochal representation to the politics of recent occupation is far from obvious to in this both p. and have these movements for their refusal to engage with representative My claim, however, is that their be employed in an of these very movements and their practices & p. In the I a of these movements established such synecdochal both and have of occupy movements such as OWS and the Spanish 15-M I that their can be employed to a understanding of these movements and their political repertoire p. concept of the in can to the forms of political representation that were implied in these movements’ practices and a on example, of is that of are the was by in in which that only of a of the and that it of the on contributed to the of the idea that be between a and a (Graeber, 2013, p. this of from the of by a that their of or and were all by the the these were all of many different and the suggested that all these had important in common. in a single or all the all the this idea of the that they a the I in the also suggested a representative is representative for what we all are of the obvious differences between In this the and the idea of a what and an between various and on the of a and experience that they all to have in common. shared which be in of or to a of and thus to a p. is the of occupation in these movements’ One shared by many of these movements is that the public in the sense of a and in the sense of a public In all parts of the world public spaces and are and this in many to the of an and concept of occupation of public space was not a but in one or the other, the occupied space was also often at 2015, p. it is no that the occupation of space played such an important for various movements the which all space as public occupied what is and the of to and as a 2015, p. Gezi Park was occupied in of the to to the of and of to another example, is not only only a from Wall but it is also a public space that the of this is a widespread and the occupation of a single very to the the of public But it a of the of public space in of in and to a for as a in for a whole. In this the that stands for is a on the one hand, on the other, a with the 2012, p. a that direct democratic decision-making and horizontalist were to a or at the very least a of and what a be (Graeber, 2013, p. also p. pp. not that these movements or to direct democratic decision-making we have their repertoire often various forms of representation as But the is by with alternative forms of organization and these movements did to their for a participatory and form of democracy we have in general and other by these movements, a larger of and is not that the synecdochal form of representation as an for these practices larger p. of their of representative democracy in current the practices of movements are In other the in which their practices and for a social or or occupation of public the of decision-making and the of a synecdochal they were representative and such as is what democracy are the or these with a particular synecdochal and is the of these statements that these to for larger a particular concept of democracy, a of the or the What is the and of political representation in the repertoire of occupy movements, such as OWS and the 15-M the of these movements in 2011 this a of debate among political theorists and social movement advocates and critics of these movements have that their horizontalist aspirations, their radical democratic rhetoric and their all a rejection of political representation I if we to these movements’ of political representation we be to various and representation as for on the one hand, and representation as for on the often an and some of between the representative and the as on the other hand, is a form of representation in which the a particular the of representation. I that both forms of representation were in fact employed by these occupy movements: representation as for can be encountered in their of and as on the other hand, can be in the these movements a idea of they for and what they aspired to in the of such synecdochal can be in their practices on the one occupation of public the general in their rhetoric and is what democracy are the the to these movements’ and practices as of political representation is the these to that representation as for not any the of representative be and And a synecdochal form of representation, in which a to for a larger sufficiently to and may it or even forms of Finally, if the politics of recent occupy movements indeed of many forms of political representation, their of representative democracy in current be To if not a direct or participatory form of democracy, did these movements their and practices indeed as a for and direct and participatory 2017, p. what this alternative view of democracy in the of these movements, many of these questions to be One a of these however, is that we the that various forms of representation played in these movements’ politics and we be to lessons from their on the of democracy and social movement de is in at are radical democratic political representation, and contemporary movements.

Jon Roffe

That ancient rhetorical trope, symbolic patricide, is alive and well in contemporary philosophy. One need look no further than the fate of Gilles Deleuze at the hands of those who amass beneath the plural banner of contemporary philosophy for proof of this. Of course the great, unavoidable irony is that the position of father is often only occupied post mortem, symbolic murder being at the same time the installation of this or that thinker at the head of yesterday’s table. I mean here simply that in the rush to stake new theoretical ground beyond ‘post-modernism’, hermeneutics and deconstruction, wild empiricism, correlationism — in sum, all of those avatars of imperialism our autochthonous fairy tales warn us about in such dire tones — Deleuze’s name comes to stand in for everything we must not anymore want or think, despite his demonstrable innocence in many regards. This prosecutory fervor leads to critical attacks that engage very little with the work itself, unconsciously exemplifying Walter Benjamin’s ninth thesis for the critic: ‘Polemics mean to destroy a book in a few of its sentences. The less it has been studied the better’ (2008: 67). These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

B. Balamurugan, T. Poongodi, M. R. Manu, S. Karthikeyan · 5 authors

The moving image archive of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) includes a copy of the film The Double Day (1975), cataloged in the series Moving Images Relating to International Development Programs and Activities, 1979–1991, a collection of more than eight hundred titles “created to provide information on assistance programs supported by the Agency for International Development (AID).”1 Yet, The Double Day does not, in fact, directly depict or engage with any specific development or aid initiative. Instead, the film—directed by US-based Brazilian filmmaker Helena Solberg as part of the International Women’s Film Project collective and described as “the first Latin American feminist documentary”—examines the gendered dynamics of paid and unpaid labor through the testimonies of women from Argentina, Bolivia, Venezuela, and Mexico.2 Its presence in the USAID archive is likely a consequence of its funding history, having received support from the Inter-American Foundation, a USAID-affiliated entity; the development agencies of Denmark, Norway, and Sweden; the United Nations Development Program; and US philanthropist Calvin Cafritz.3These transnational funding structures not only enabled the film’s production but also determined its archival destination, which renders legible its place within the history of international development.4 The Double Day’s institutional trajectory reflects the shifting configurations of aid, gender, and media during a historic moment when women were being repositioned at the center of what Arturo Escobar has described as development’s “regimes of visuality.”5 Especially relevant to The Double Day’s production and exhibition was the international institutional framework of Women in Development (WID). Emerging in the early 1970s and culminating in United Nations’ proclamation of 1975 as International Women’s Year, WID emphasized women’s participation in the global economy as both an index and mechanism of development. Indeed, The Double Day premiered at the World Conference of the International Women’s Year, held in Mexico City.6 Within this context, the film forms part of a broader trajectory of media use by international organizations that intensified during the 1970s—as best exemplified by Media Habitat, a collection of 236 documentary films commissioned by the United Nations to represent urban and rural development initiatives for the 1976 Habitat Conference on Human Settlements in Vancouver. As a policy-shaping initiative, Media Habitat primarily featured films from the Global South intended not only to illustrate but also to help codify standardized audiovisual markers of “underdevelopment” that determined access to the emerging global economic order and to international aid.7Framed in relation to these international institutions and their operations, The Double Day could similarly be considered “development media”—exemplifying the type of nonfiction media produced and distributed outside of the commercial film circuits whose aspects and subcategories have been variously described in scholarship as nontheatrical, useful, sponsored, institutional, industrial, educational, or nonprofessional/amateur.8 Scholars working in this area have emphasized the institutional contexts of such media’s production and exhibition infrastructures as shaping its instrumentalized effects. From a feminist perspective, such an approach is crucial to grappling with the broader question of how “gender impacts [these works’] shape, content, and trajectories.”9 Yet we also argue that, taken in isolation, the institutional and infrastructural contexts are insufficient to account for the complex relationship between media and development, potentially not only limiting our understanding of the reach and impact of development but also distorting our interpretive conclusions. For example, to categorize The Double Day as “development media” is to overlook the film’s place within Solberg’s directorial oeuvre, as well as within the histories of both transnational women’s filmmaking and radical Latin American documentary cinema to which it simultaneously belongs. Such exclusive framing is especially limiting given that women globally were disproportionately engaged in nonfiction production throughout the twentieth century—sometimes by political choice but more often due to structural exclusions from fiction filmmaking. Even in nonfiction historiography, however, institutional media has remained particularly marginal, reinforcing hierarchies that separate such works from the aesthetic and authorial frameworks through which film history has been constructed.10 This marginalization not only tends to erase women’s contributions but also presumes a “weak” or derivative authorship, rendering these films unworthy of the interpretive attention needed to apprehend their aesthetic and political complexity.11 The same dynamic is likely to structure assumptions about “development media” as well.Categorizing The Double Day exclusively within this category would further prompt us to assume top-down institutional analyses that have been characteristic of both institutional media methodologies and the scholarship on development at large. This, in turn, would risk obscuring this film’s radical Marxist approach to women’s labor as well as its concrete contribution to activism and its attendant grassroot structures. In Mexico City, The Double Day became a catalyst for feminist solidarity in practice when one of the film’s protagonists, Bolivian activist and trade unionist Domitila Barrios de Chungara, was invited to participate in the Tribune of Non-Governmental Organizations held alongside the official UN conference.12 There, Barrios de Chungara challenged Western feminist priorities by reframing the debate around labor, class, and imperialism, helping to articulate a shared Third World feminist agenda that significantly departed from the developmentalist vision of the United Nations and USAID.13 Seen through the lens of activist media, The Double Day helped forge transnational solidarity networks by enabling information exchange across the diverse voices that shaped its making—from the women featured in the film to the activists who circulated it—revealing a considerably more dynamic interplay between institutional and grassroots or contingent media practices.Moreover, the film’s Latin American context—reflected in Solberg’s formation in Brazil as the only woman in Cinema Novo, its focus on women from across the region, and its premiere and key reception in Mexico City—requires grappling with the regional specificities of the very notion of development in its multiple iterations.14 Far from being an epistemological and political framework imposed solely by the Global North, both the practices of development and the theoretical foundations of developmentalism (understood as a broad and polysemic set of discourses) were shaped through the active participation of Latin American economists.15 Within this iteration, underdevelopment, as a constitutive notion of developmentalism, became central to a distinctly critical strand, which by the late 1960s became known as the dependency theory.16 This same approach is reflected in some of the best-known Latin American radical film manifestos of the time, arising precisely from the same milieus to which Solberg belonged.17These various considerations of the film’s history illustrate the methodological challenges confronting feminist scholars seeking to assess the impact of development on media projects, theories, and practices. To disregard the developmentalist context of such works by emphasizing their political aesthetics and affects risks reproducing a romanticized narrative of heroic resistance (albeit from a feminist perspective). Yet to engage exclusively with their institutional and material infrastructures risks naturalizing developmentalism’s political and epistemological foundations at the expense of the goals and beliefs of the many women who participated in these projects. The contradictions and ambivalences that animate such histories call for feminist frameworks capable of holding both institutional complicity and radical possibility in view.This challenge resonates with ongoing debates about the politics of the archive and what Allyson Field has termed “the practice of informed speculation.”18 As she reminds us, feminist, queer, and decolonial methodologies have long taught us to “press at the limits” of the archive to “inoculate our scholarship against our evidence’s afflictions.”19 The concern that the evidence we draw on in our analysis reproduces the very structures and blind spots of the dominant ideology and therefore shapes and delimits our interpretation becomes particularly urgent when engaging the developmentalist media corpus. Informed speculation offers an alternative by inviting the experimental, creative, and speculative rewriting of history, mobilizing the archive “in a project that runs counter to the original purpose, or the imperative to preserve, or the conditions that led to erasure.”20 Yet, as Field cautions, such speculative gestures must remain grounded in a deep and “intimate familiarity with the archive” that we are working with and against. Building on this imperative, we suggest that the developmentalist archive, in particular, demands expansion and critical reconsideration in ways that unsettle the very disciplinary frameworks through which it has been studied as well as the larger institutional contexts for such knowledge production.Our focus on The Double Day in the opening of this introduction thus foregrounds the entanglements of institutional and grassroots forces, local and international contexts, structural and interpersonal relations, and creative and economic factors that have shaped not only this film but the broader ecosystem of development media projects—and their preservation—over time. Addressing such a constellation involves transgressing methodologically entrenched divisions between political economy and aesthetics, between material infrastructures and affective regimes; reckoning with divergent periodizations across film history and world economics; and situating these within the local specificities of women’s movements and international institutional programs. It also demands attentiveness to the coexistence of multiple, and sometimes competing, understandings of development—each historically, geographically, and ideologically situated.We imagine this special issue as an opening toward a critical dialogue, not only about how such an approach might be enacted in practice but also about the far-reaching ways development paradigms have shaped both our objects of study and the contours of the field itself. The decision to center institutionally sponsored films across all the essays in this issue is deliberate and enables us to highlight institutional critique as a vital methodological imperative within our analytical framework. Created within the frameworks of international organizations, state agencies, or NGOs, these films’ histories make legible the institutional logics that underwrite their production. Yet our critique does not stop at these specific entities. Rather, we argue for a broader interrogation of the political conditions and institutional infrastructures that shape media and knowledge production more generally. This includes contemporary corporations embedded in the digital platform economy, from streaming services to the rapid expansion of AI. Equally critical is a reflexive examination of academia itself, where departments of economics, political science, and centers for development have played a formative role in producing and legitimizing developmentalist theories and policy frameworks. While the humanities and arts have at times offered critical alternatives, they have also frequently mirrored and reinforced many of the same developmentalist assumptions. A feminist analysis of the nexus between development and media must therefore unsettle not only dominant archives but also the institutional and disciplinary foundations of our own scholarly practices.As scholars, we share the complex position of navigating the same tensions between institutional complicity and emancipatory aspiration as many of the media-makers whose work we study. Mirroring our subjects is also the transnational, collective mode of this special issue’s own production as it emerges from an ongoing informal working group we have sustained over several years. While relying on institutional and disciplinary affordances—such as university funding for conferences or access to academic publishing platforms—we have been working toward creating a community that exceeds, and often resists, the prevailing logics of our academic institutions. Our aim has been to create a space for shared inquiry and mutual support that pushes back against disciplinary siloing and technocratic neoliberal assessment modes of both labor and knowledge production—and this certainly extends to our experience collaborating with the journal editors throughout the publication process. Our goal has been to examine both the persistence and variability of developmentalism, understood as what Gustavo Esteva calls a “powerful but fragile semantic constellation,” as a conceptual formation that has historically inspired, legitimized, and mobilized media projects across Asia, Africa, and Latin America.21 And gendered biopolitics, from population control to gender mainstreaming, have remained integral to development policies and media practices, recurring across formats from institutional newsreels to film festivals.We share the conviction that, far beyond the history of nonfiction institutional media, development (as both a broad ideological project and a network of material and institutional practices) and developmentalism (as a set of discourses and theoretical models associated with development) have exerted a far-reaching influence on film and media cultures at large. As such, they must be treated as a major force in shaping global film and media systems and also the many ongoing assumptions behind their critical discourses. The discipline of communication studies was founded on modernization theory governed by Cold War goals of dissemination of Western liberal democracy around the world, while “an area studies framework allowed compartmentalizing Western and non-Western outcomes of technologies that were always claimed to be universal.”22 Despite critique from postcolonial and critical race studies, many of these frameworks have remained foundational for media theory.23 In historical scholarship, as we increasingly move beyond “modernity” as a dominant conceptual anchor, engaging with practices and discourses of development opens more precise analytical pathways. These film and media’s entanglements with the logics of and economic and the associated with as well as their conceptual underdevelopment, and impact in as diverse as and of media aesthetic and paradigms in film and film and funding are developmentalist assumptions to the they to underwrite the narrative and logics of and global media from the structure of the film to the cultures of argue that a examination of the historical entanglements between film and developmentalist aesthetics, modes of as well as infrastructures and critical the and that our contemporary media is a of the historical contours of development as a field of inquiry embedded within a of some of the methodologies by the featured in this special a of this complex history, to the larger at in media, development, and gender all its development a it as an of be with practices as divergent as and in In as we work on this the of the of the USAID the ideological that have the history of international the and of this on the global its a from development as a global practice and as an institutional and which over the has as a with its own media Yet or does not erase the historical impact of these the contradictions they have reflected and over the as the of development several crucial to the economic theories of development initiatives to and through the of the development an international policy framework at from the Global to the of the Global the by the political role of and the of the International the on was challenged by dependency theory and at development as global structural the neoliberal of the the Programs by the and World imposed and as conditions for and forms of assistance became known as the major markers for international development development has moving beyond economic to such as the Human Development and the Development and from international organizations such as the United Nations to a broader network of These frameworks increasingly of and liberal of and with what in many ways to various while the of the to development’s epistemological more scholarship has toward a of its and material the field has to a of and critical by and scholars, which development as a dynamic of conceptual and political to these the studies in this special issue call for sustained analysis in place of In we draw from a of and that in of of gender and to this special issue engage that and from Mexico to contemporary specific local historical of global distinctly feminist methodologies as well as attention to studies that this issue a in the global history of development on and documentary work in Mexico how early women infrastructures as of while US films an early of state and transnational on a outside the Global as the of developmentalist both the and markers of development media, its to the and Latin central grounded in archival also women’s in transnational and the methodological of archives on study of the series to a a digital media not by but by women not as but as subjects and within circuits of neoliberal and the aesthetics and of how development’s has models of to contemporary neoliberal paradigms of and analysis how digital and gender and practices, discourses on and their of these essays the of some of the historical of developmentalist as the question of the role of the state within such on a notion of economic as a and the dominant of development that the state as the for and through infrastructural projects. This understanding of development was shared across both of the as well as in the Third The United and the increasingly mobilized international in the of the modes of international at the postcolonial of policy and ideological These programs were at the expansion of their and of while with the and decolonial of The conceptual between modernization and development that the Cold in of and hierarchies of that long and As an of postcolonial their role as of international aid concern about the of Western development projects. In alternative across the Global South that to structural between and through policies of and In many they were further the global structures. In Latin for example, this approach was through organizations such as the United Nations for Latin and the both developmentalist projects and their have taken many forms historically, and they have and they have been to a of projects, and postcolonial and development has been and in ways and with frequently political While many of these alternative frameworks the embedded in dominant Western they often technocratic and assumptions. gender and gender as for the of to be shaped by This becomes particularly in the media that of development where women frequently a crucial associated with and women were as both the subjects and of their participation in the and labor often as the index of In this study of from the 1970s how women were as of this as these about women’s urban and recurring and of a within the own of and critique that official examination of archives and enables a feminist interrogation of their mobilizing a of the in the of contribution to this issue similarly the of a dynamic within as well as across ideological the of women’s and the media of the and as active in labor and as integral to the technocratic women became of as their labor remained a of and analysis and archival with attention to the specific of and It also transnational that as a and affective a nexus of and practices through which gender, media, and developmentalism one film not as a but as part of the of alongside and work a broader concern of this special media as a of developmentalist projects. 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The an by this dynamic as of the from the Global South are to engage with the developmentalist assumptions funding models that their similarly the as a in developmentalist media history by the of and centers on the Film a between of and the attention toward the and labor by and work was foundational the of and the of audiovisual aid, as both a of development projects and a critical for their the in this issue argue for a with media, gender, and developmentalism as an field of that is and shaped by feminist and methodologies and that challenge the entanglements between academic knowledge production and and technocratic development And while methodological these dynamics at the structural the of feminist in media and cinema by this the very a