Tactical agency and reimagining democratic participation in a multiplex world: Southern experiences

Application summary

Global geopolitics is undergoing dramatic changes. The transition to a more conflictual and complex world order, and increasingly critical views about liberal ‘Western’ values, has turned many countries of the Global South to BRICS and authoritarian states, such as China and Russia, as partners and funders for their societal projects. This project analyses the implications of the shifts in global alliances for democratic imagination, practices and spaces in the Global South. Focusing on four fence-sitter countries, Algeria, Cambodia, Pakistan, and Tunisia, it analyses the local civil society dynamics and the activists’ pursuits of democratic participation around the issues of 1) environmental justice, 2) labour rights, 3) sustainable livelihood and 4) anti-racism. We represent a qualitative, interdisciplinary research practice that combines insights from development studies, political science, political sociology and political anthropology. It promotes a critical reflection into conceptualizations of democracy, participation and agency. It explores civil society formations and acknowledges the complex dynamics between formal organizations and cultural modes of collective action. It examines the emerging forms of tactical agencies at people’s disposal when they are compelled to navigate new roles, (in)visibilities and relevance in changing institutional settings. Multi-sited ethnography enables to acknowledge voices that are usually excluded from public political debates. The methods include participant observation, document analysis and interviews with community activists, as well as NGO professionals, public officials and company representatives. By linking global level geopolitics and local level civil society dynamics, we will provide an innovative analysis of how democracy, collective action, and participation are currently imagined, materialized, and transformed in the Global South, making a timely contribution to urgent academic and policy debates.