Acción directa y sindicalismo. Una etnografía de combate

Abstract

In this article I make an ethnographic description of an episode of a strike in which, for several reasons, I was involved. I take advantage of the ethnography to reflect on the meaning of direct action and its role in class struggle. I also revise James Scott’s analysis of power relations, for whom subordinate’s offstage behaviour concludes when begins overt confrontation. I conclude that direct action, while promotes creativity and freedom for those who exercise it, and generates rejection in dominant groups, constructs in the present time an experience—ephemeral, temporary—of autonomy, which set the grounds for a horizontal model of society.