Digital Formations of the Powerful and the Powerless: Local Actors in Global Politics

Saskia Sassen, Columbia University, New York

From struggle for human rights, environmental issues, and revolutionary movements around the world, to genuinely trivial pursuits, the Internet has emerged as a powerful communication and support medium on scales ranging from the local to the global. What we might still experience as ‘local’ actually no longer is purely local - but rather becomes an internetworked micro-environment with global span. Digital networks can be used by political activists on a global or on a local scale. Recognizing how the new digital technology can serve to support formerly local initiatives and alliances is extremely important in an age where the notion of the local is often seen as losing ground to its global counterpart. Saskia Sassen will discuss the ways in which local actors and their struggle can shape existing and generate new types of global politics.