Institutions and Movements
Old institutions are changing and looking for new directions. A lot has been written lately, especially by the theoreticians of the new social movements, about the possible new ‘mental’ prototypes of institutions and the new kinds of institutionality. These debates focus not only on the crisis specific to the traditional forms of organization, such as trade unions and political parties, not excluding universities and art institutions, but also on their constituent practices, on possible associations between movements and institutions, and on the so called ‘knowledge protocols’ – structures of norms governing institutions and prescribing research, evaluation procedures and so on. But is it possible to overcome the dichotomy between institutions and movements? How should we reflect on the openings that this conflictual relation provides? How should we develop the idea of “learning from” institutions, passing on the knowledge to movements, inventing new conceptual, expressive and organizational tools? How should we deal with the new forms of political experience? What is the role of art institutions in this new context?