Las Insurgencias No Tienen un Plan – Ellas Son el Plan Performativos Políticos y Mediadores Evanescentes

Abstract

2011 turned out to be an extraordinary year. The clustering of insurgencies around time and geography gave a
political ring to the seasons: commentators spoke of the Arab Spring, the European Summer, and the US Fall. TIME
magazine even named “the protester” person of the year. Similar revolts emerged in the following years in Mexico, Turkey
and Brazil. Some faulted them for their lack of plans and proposals, a criticism that misses the point by confusing the
disruption of the given with the task of reconfiguring it. Insurgencies are not standard political practices or policy-making
exercises. They are about saying “enough!” and refusing to go on as before. They are in fact operators of difference:
insurgencies are the plan in the sense that a medium can be the message. I will argue that they open up possibilities that may
or may not prosper but nonetheless allow us to glimpse something other to come; that they are political performatives—
participants start to experience what they strive to become; and that they function as vanishing mediators that put different
worlds in contact with one another. I address these points in a discussion about the material remainder of the Arab Spring
and the student mobilizations in Chile.