Interrogating the Civil Society Agenda
This international conference will explore two faces of social struggles in the Americas today: the proliferation of civic participation through so-called third sector organizations and governmental programs, on the one hand, and the increased visibility of “less civil-ized,” more contentious collective action, on the other.
Both facets—which we call the Civil Society Agenda and Uncivil-ized Contention, respectively—have profound implications for the future(s) of democratic politics. By investigating the limits and possibilities of a variety of participatory schema, speakers will interrogate prevailing assumptions about the relationship between civil society and democracy. At the same time, conference sessions will explore what lessons other, recent, apparently “non-civic” social movement practices may offer for promoting democratic innovations. Participants include faculty and graduate students from the Five Colleges, as well as scholars and activist-intellectuals based in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Perú, Puerto Rico, the United Kingdom, the United States and Venezuela.
Confirmed speakers include: Sonia E. Alvarez; Kiran Asher; Leonardo Avritzer; Gianpaolo Baiocchi; Andrea Cornwall; Liliana Cotto; Evelina Dagnino; Guillermo Delgado; Graciela di Marco; Raphael Hoetner; Joseph Krupczynski; Agustín Laó-Montes; Margarita López-Maya; José A. Lucero; Graciela Monteagudo; Amalia Pallares; Edwin Quiles; Marcela Ríos-Tobar; Jeff Rubin; Doris Sommer; Maristella Svampa; Luciana Tatagiba; Millie Thayer; Virginia Vargas; Alejandro Velasco; and Brian Wampler. The conference will also feature presentations and performances by artists, cultural workers and community activists based in Western Massachusetts, including Argentine writer, Nora Strejilevich, Nicaraguan cultural activist, Rosa Oviedo, Peruvian musicians Daniel Zamalloa and UMass professor, Henry Geddes, and Puerto Rican cuatro composer and maestro, José González.