Reconstructing the autonomy in the age of globalization

Along with development projects, neoliberal globalization has been one of the modernity institutions which transforms rest of the World in line with Western ideals. Such transformation has brought poverty, misery and violence to communities and especially to those in the so-called "Third World". Those communities have come to realize that the system that bears such misery and violence is not their fate and is not without an alternative and the ways of creating such alternatives are emanating from the grassroots. The concept of autonomy is the path to such attempts of creating alternatives. However, autonomy has long been studied in and associated with liberal school of thought. But, the liberal approaches to autonomy which tend to see autonomy as a tool for achieving a greater goal and conceptualizes it through vague and abstract situtations, are nothing but shallow in these times of neoliberal globalization. Because, as it can be observed in the case of Zapatista Movement, the grassroots initiatives aim to be autonomous from the institutions of modernity and the liberal approaches view these institutions like free-market economy or nation-state as natural realities and without their alternatives. Such an approach is not only compatible with the very notion of autonomy but is what Castoriadis called heteronomy; the opposite of autonomy. In this light, the Post-Development Theory provides theoretical framework for an alternative and multi-layered conceptualization of autonomy. As it can be seen in the case of Zapatista Movement, the project of autonomy can be realized through political, cultural and economic levels. It is the aim of this study to theorize such an alternative and multi-layered approach to autonomy. Key Words: Autonomy, Liberalism, Globalization, Neoliberalism, Development, Post-Development Theory, Castoriadis, Zapatista Movement