Rethinking Civil Society in Development: Scales and Situated Hegemonies

Abstract

The new development agenda formulated through the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) is rich with issues such as women empowerment, inclusive society, environment, and decent work that have been high on the agenda of civil society actors. However, civil society itself gets only a scant attention among other implementing bodies. We argue for nuanced investigation of civil society in the context of SDGs, and its rethinking in the arena of development research, and propose an approach that pays attention to situated hegemonies at different scales, and engages with empirical complexities in a non-normative tone. We illustrate the proposed agenda by reviewing literature on local organizing, established organizations, and networks and alliances especially in the contexts of South Africa and Tanzania. In conclusion we suggest that paying attention to situated hegemonies at different scales provides a fruitful framework for discussing civil society in both development research and practice in the threshold of new global development era.

Practices of Citizenship in East Africa

“…The implication here is that people tend to organize around, seek new knowledge about, and experiment with new ways of doing things, in relation to issues that are significant and relevant for them; in rural contexts, for instance, these are often related to livelihood and income on the one hand, and to social gatherings such as weddings and funerals on the other. Therefore, for any intervention seeking to promote change, engaging with these existing forms of organizing Kontinen & Millstein 2017) offers promising opportunities, in pragmatist terms, to form communities of inquiry, and introduce disruptions to existing habitsor, in the terminology of development, to initiate sustainable development based on ownership by local communities.…”

Conclusions

“…The implication here is that people tend to organize around, seek new knowledge about, and experiment with new ways of doing things, in relation to issues that are significant and relevant for them; in rural contexts, for instance, these are often related to livelihood and income on the one hand, and to social gatherings such as weddings and funerals on the other. Therefore, for any intervention seeking to promote change, engaging with these existing forms of organizing (Lewis 2002;Kontinen & Millstein 2017) offers promising opportunities, in pragmatist terms, to form communities of inquiry, and introduce disruptions to existing habitsor, in the terminology of development, to initiate sustainable development based on ownership by local communities.…”

Shaping policy, sustaining peace: Intergenerational activism in the policy ecosystem

“…Regional expert Toni Haastrup (2019) highlights the importance of the African Union Gender Policy; other scholars have focused on particular states' National Action Plans (Hudson 2017), security sector reform (Bastick 2008), and the inclusion of women in state or United Nations-led peace processes (Hendricks 2015). Where policy scholarship does consider civil society, well-established nongovernmental organisations tend to receive far more attention than grassroots organisers (Kontinen & Millstein 2017). As Tolulope Adeogun (2018) observes, grassroots organisations are still largely seen as "third parties which can either slow down or hasten policymaking processes", rather than as knowledgeable and experienced actors within the policymaking ecosystem.…”