"What Is A 'Constitute'? A new organisation for the coronaverse" - A/UK's Pat Kane presents to Civic Square's Re/ festival
This blog has been developed from a presentation made by A/UK’s co-initiator Pat Kane, at Civic Square’s online festival Re/ - a project of its Department of Dreams - on the 17th June 2020 (see original invitation).
The invitation blurb for the presentation is below:
There's an urgency about the kinds of organisations and structures we need to mobilise and energise people--to grapple with a disrupted biosphere, exponential tech, decolonized cultures. No dictionary we know has a definition for "constitute"... as a noun. In this workshop, can we provide one, and build something useful for these times?
What do we call the loose, capacious, yet coherent structures that could align a “multitude of purposes” coming from community and civil/network society? Not harnessing them to an ideology, party or regime too early, but allowing their powers to amass emergently and experimentally? Could we call them “constitutes”?
A serious-playful exercise in which you can explore your own definitions of the term, or challenges to it.
[For more on constitutes, see this A/UK blog and an archive search, as well as this 2011 presentation. Below is a prose adaption from the original slides and spoken presentation, on the day]
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PK: So we’re here today to do something quite small, but quite special. About ten years ago, while casting around for some words to describe my then practice as an activist and intellectual, I discovered that the word “constitute” had no definition as… a noun.
A verb, yes - see the definitions from Cambridge and dictionary.com below - but no noun, as a part of speech.
This is a great opportunity, I felt (and feel). What if we tried to give the noun constitute a lexical definition, by attaching it to a body of practice in the real world? It’s clear this noun should have something to do with human power, agency, organisation. But what, exactly and precisely?
So today I want you to help me with that definition. This recording and material will be sent to reputable lexicographers, I assure you… and we’ll see if we can make a tiny bit of cultural history today.
Let me begin by doing some verbal games and experiments, to see if we can approach some defintions based on our common understandings of words and terms that might surround it.
For example, take this exploration of the word institute:
As a verb, you can institute something
As a noun, you can build an institute
Which is a more defined or specific version of the generic form known as an institution
The condition of being an institution (or institute) is to be institutional
Now plug constitute into this structure:
As a verb you, can constitute something
As a noun you can form/assemble/emerge [hmm, what one is right?] a constitute
Which is a more defined or specific version of the generic form known as an constitution
The condition of being a constitute (or constitution) is to be constitutional
Is it really going to be this easy? Perhaps not…and primarily, I want to resist the automatic linkage between constitute and constitution. Here’s another testbed of sentences:
An institution (and its institutes) are static, concrete entities, from bricks and budgets, archives and research agendas, solid and established
A constitution (and its constitutes??) are abstract protocols, principles, bodies of law, that are emerged and forged in society, realised in a mass political moment, then tested in courts and on parliament floors.
It’s still not clear from this what kind of thing a constitute is, or might be. Let’s run a bit further with the preceding context:
Is a constitute what we mean by “convention” in “constitutional convention”—the act of practically and concretely convening a range of civic and social forces?
Is a constitute something like an online petition that demonstrates the force of public opinion, either triggering a parliamentary question l or using publicity to bring a civic issue to state attention?
Is a constitute a specific court case brought to defend or attack the principles of a constitution? EG, the Supreme Court wondering whether Downing Street has executive power over Parliament…
All this is perhaps imaginable… But sorry - to me it seems a really dull waste of a great semantic opportunity. I think constitute has more mystery and possibly in it than that. Let’s roam around the connotations some more:
We don’t go for a morning institutional...
…but we might go for a morning constitutional
We don’t say, she has the institution of an ox…
…but we do say she has the constitution of an ox
So there’s something bodily and energetic, dynamic and felt about things constituting, or that constitute themselves. An official national-political constitution is often achieved by a movement or even a revolution - bodies in the public space, mobilised, in motion.
In that context, by comparison with a constitution, a constitute could be the thing - the energy container (or generator) - that keeps a movement or revolution going. The practice, or structure, that reminds us of the bigger principles and codes we fought to develope. The material action that keeps us sharp and skilled in defending and extending them.
So again, in that context, let me hazard some more real-world examples
Is Corbyn Labour’s Momentum platform a constitute?
Were the school climate strikes coordinated by social media, or Extinction Rebellion’s city-centre occupations, constitutes?
Is each self-governing unit in Rojava a constitute?
There’s a strong pull on constitute from the semantic field of “the constitutional”. There’s no point in denying that - but we should be open to the term being hooked up to a much less legalistic and jurisdictional reality.
A constitute could be something that lives in the world of networks and emergence, of affect and swarming, of temporary and novel structures.
But to get there, there’s one final argument I can see that threatens to corral the meaning of constitute into its pen. I’m referring to the long-standing discussion in political theory around the difference between:
• constituted power (the power of state and law), and
• constituent power (the power of the people or multitude - which Antonio Negri has revived in the last few decades) [see this paper]
Oh dear. Does this mean that a constitute is merely that which is constituted - that is, another word for the state, or some state-like function?
Again, how sad—what an anti-climax! A boring definition for a usefully empty word…
OR: could we at least imagine that a constitute, as an entity, could sit exactly between the “constituent” and the “constituted”?
This means that a constitute draws from deep, turbulent, radically democratic, common, coming-up-from-below forces (the constituent)
….However, it also aims to create a structure, build assets, maybe even change laws and policies—but does so by concretely prefiguring and prototyping them, by pulling them out of the future and bringing them into being (using tech and social innovation)? By constituting them. (the constituted)
So: What does a constitute do? It constitutes. Meaning… It invites a seething mass of yearning, disatissfied, ambitous people in a community to ask:
What are the powers, forces and resources we seek, in a hypermodern form?
How do we keep dwelling on the ways we’re seeking them, as we’re actually seeking them?
If that sounds a bit anarchist/social anarchist, then I should fess up. The basic anarchist principle—the degree to which any structure standing over us must be rooted in our consent and assent—is guiding my thinking (or my aspiration) for the meaning of a constitute.
I’m hoping constitute can be used as the name for a structure that expresses as much of the self-determining and autonomous activity of citizens and agents as it can, in the age of networks & flows.
I was helped in this recently in my discussion with Ruth Kinna, the writer of the recent Penguin book on anarchism, The Government of No One. She sent me a paper the other day titled “Anarchic Agreements: a guide to the process of constitutionalising and group forming.”
Ruth defines constitutionalising as: “the continual process of defining and redefining the identity and ethos of a community and developing and changing the rules that govern the behaviour of the community and its members”.
That sounds very like the way the participants and co-creators of a constitute would relate to its structure (whatever that structure was made of - a website / built space / set of agreements / mission…)
Ruth’s 3 rules of thumb for “constitutionalising for anarchists” is that it be:
1. Consensual - no rule, code or structure above us without the consent or agreement of those below
2. Changeable - no rule, code or structure above us without the possibility of these being changed or amended being regularly open
3. Conscious - behaviour towards others in these structures with a fully conscious awareness of any asymmetry or hierarchy, its temporary and functional status
Finally, I have to say that in The Alternative UK, the experimental political platform that I’m part of, co-initiated with Indra Adnan & co-created with thousands of others… we have been trying to generate and emerge some early constitutes, with our two prime locations being:
• Plymouth/South Devon
• Stoke-on-Trent
The constitute is the generic idea, but the specific characterisation we’re using is called a Citizens Action Network, or a CAN.
A CAN is a network structure that tries to:
Connect the creative, post-party-political energies of localities and communities, all the social enterprises and mutual aid that they do and are capable of….
…with some of the small and soft infrastructures that are technologically available, to enable these places to immediately build assets for themselves, or develop existing ones further, in energy, food, housing, media/comms, light and distributed manufacture, radical childcare, etc
(This next point is rather too scholarly, I’ll agree… But a constitute is pretty close to what Deleuze and Guattari once called an “assemblage” - an eclectic structuring of elements that hangs together by virtue of its purpose, narrative, local tradition, idiosyncrasies, than by a strict organisational chart. But also by the pervasiveness of communication and computational networks in our lives, which - if used skilfully - can amass a complex but common purpose. Again, see the latest Negri and Hardt book, Assembly - my review for the New Scientist).
The reason why these Citizen Action Networks are constitutes - rather than any recognisable form of incorporation or trust - is because of Ruth’s three principles: they are about being consensual, changeable and conscious. This means they are attractive, useful and evolving collective practice.
Constitutes are not dissimilar to Rob Hopkins and the TransitionTowns Networks and the Permaculture movement it arises from…
…However we not only embrace market gardens and microbreweries, but 3D printing, ledger technology, electric cars, AI for Good… Nothing productive or creative is alien to a CAN - or a constitute.
So there’s my attempt to fill in the dictionary blank under “constitute (n.)”. What I’d like you to do in these break out rooms - you can of course constitute yourselves as you wish! - is help me out with one of two things:-
Work on the dictionary definition - try to define the word. Be lexicographers for 20 minutes
Explore the issues - about power, organisation, community/locality, networks, technology and planet - that thinking about a constitute might raise.
My final question for the end of this workshop, which will go into a big Department of Dreams question box at the end is: What are the new forms of organisation that will express the radical possibilities of the moment? If not a constitute, then what?
And here’s a very provisional simulation of what some months and years of practice might eventually condense around the new noun, constitute:
constitute [ kon-sti-toot, ‘-tyoot]. Noun
A composition, a forming
The constitute was assembled to gather together the forces and assets of the community
The making and creating of leadership functions by a community
It was decided by the constitute that she would liase with the people from the solar energy grid
A flexible social structure that connects community purpose with infrastructural and productive technologies
The local food system was convened and coordinated by the constitute
Ends
Immediate responses from the participants:
[Note: these are Pat’s own notes, pending a more accurate transcription later when the video of the event appears, which will be posted in this blog]
“Reminds me of the Adopt-A-Block programme in Los Angeles”
“And the concept of “communities of practice” - bound together by an ethos, driven by small groups and small processes”
“Or of the way that Michel Bauwens is talking about the revival of peer-to-peer guilds and maker spaces. Also Tessy Britton’s work in Participatory City”
“It’s also similar to what Rebel Wisdom is trying to explore with its sense-making process - how that generates new kinds of commitment”
“This event talks a lot about understanding dreams… What a ‘constitute’ makes me think of is how we come to a common philosophy about anything - how is it dreamed into being”
“I like the term ‘constitute’ because it seems to emphasize people taking responsibility - either to create things or feed ideas into a structure. And in the process, letting go of our current existence defined by politics. It might allow us to have flexibility between different positions and ambitions in a community”
“I’m also reminded of transactional analysis, which I’m studying at the moment. The institution/institute is when ‘the parents’ seem to be in charge of us. The constitute is adult-to-adult - we are in charge of ourselves”
“Coming from the American perspective… We think of constitutionalism as something led by principles and values. Being a member of an institution/institute would seem to disallow for participation. But joining a constitute is a co-created experience, where you learn the function of the structure as you go along. I wonder where tacit agreement comes into play… But I see the role for levelled and layered participation in this idea”.
“'I’m also reminded of the practice of ‘holocracy’. It’s simply explained - everyone in a company has ‘the power of a CEO’. Holocracies regard the company as having a basic “energy”, which people tap into - I imagine that a constitute might work like that. I’d also reference Laloux’s Reinventing Organisations, where he says the enterprise is more like an organism than a machine.”
“I’ve been thinking all the way through this talk about the demise of the office in Coronavirus. Say if you work from home—or when conditions relent, it may be at a variety of local co-working spaces. You could find yourself relating more to the people in this local space than the bigger organisation… what might you call that? Might we then become a constitute?”
***
Are you interested in helping us develop both the theory and principles of a constitute, and the Citizen Action Networks which make it real? Would you like to set up a CAN yourself?
Please become a co-creator at this link, and join our Loomio Action Groups for deeper discussion, planning and project-building.
And in any case, share widely and comment below. We’d love to hear from you.