Organizing Resistance: DiY as Ethical and Political Praxis

Our goal in this chapter is to examine the DiY (Do it Yourself) movement’s organizational philosophy, with particular focus on the concept of independence. Beginning with an examination of organizational practices in two DiY artistic events held in the Naples area, we will illustrate the tension inherent an independent approach to organizing: on one side it emphasizes the importance of personal relations and volunteerism, encouraging self-organization and self-production, with a predilection for direct action, on the other it also affirms the need for political activism which results in practices of resistance, non-professionalism, self-marginalization, and counterproductive work behaviors, generally considered in contrast with common sense. Connecting these contrasting tendencies to issues deriving from anarchist idea of theoretical praxis and Foucault’s definition of utopia and heterotopia, we argue that DiY and independence can indeed give rise to positive social initiatives informed by rigorous philosophical discussions. In particular, they can be associated with forms of organizational ethics based on immanence and performativity, attentive to the process over the product, which find resonance in recent critical organization studies and theorizations of organizing outside organization.