Abstrakt
During ethnographic research with young anti-austerity and antifascist activists from Germany, it was discovered that radical political engagement embraces cultivation of bivalent modus operandi which form the core complex of activist's critical habitus. This doubling seems crucial: militant activists navigate their lifes through middle class social milieu as university students with non-violent bodies communicating critical opinions in discussions, texts, arguments and having symbiotic relations with the state, as well as invisible "rebellious butterflies", Black Bloc rioters, neo-nazi hunters, with confrontational and fighting bodies trained in street direct actions, martial arts, urban and virtual techniques of anonymization, and communicating through non-discursive, yet highly symbolical attacks on the post-fascist state of Germany and key institutions founding global capitalism and neoliberal governance.
The logic of political practice lies in the art of re/activating subjectivity of masked rebels. This doubling forms crucial part of theirs habitus and is managed by "critical equipment" - set of (mostly) discursive tools enabling different kinds of reorientations - a) of middle class priviledged position towards fights against structural inequalities within society; b) of ordoliberal productivity and protestant work ethic towards fights against neoliberal governance and global capitalism; c) of germancentrism and geopolitical and economical power of Germany towards fights against nation state of Germany in austerity era.
In my presentation special focus will be given to reorientation of middle class position through process of re/activation of masked subjectivity of invisible butterflies.