Contestations in Global Civil Society

The concept of Global Civil Society as an ‘imagined global community’ is raising questions that challenge perceptions of a border-free, footloose, global community. The era of ‘hyper-individualism’, accompanied by the virtualization of the public sphere, is offering support for collective action and processes in the face of rising economic and social anxieties, such as inequality, poverty, terrorism, xenophobia, nuclear weapons, and environmental destruction. Global Civil Society is now equipping itself to negotiate with resurrected boundaries, calls for decelerating the flow of people, identity clashes and throwbacks to tribal politics.

Contestations in Global Civil Society examines the ways in which the global community is dealing with heightened destabilization, entering what has been dubbed an ‘Age of Fracture’, and takes a close look at contemporary shifts that accompany the resurrection of multiple normative civil society discourses such as political mobilization, polarization, responsibility, and participation.

What are the contestations within global civil society? What is our current perception of global civil society? How is it coping with the huge changes that are happening all around us? What will global civil society look like in the future?