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Surreptitious symbiosis: the relationship between NGO’s and movement activists

For now, thanks to surreptitious symbiosis, it is possible to do sustained activism to bring about social change, without becoming part of a ‘civil society industry’. From the Squares and Beyond partnership.

By Marlies Glasius and Armine Ishkanian
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beyond squares
beyond squares

Protest against TTIP.
Protest against TTIP.

Protest against TTIP. Demotix/Rachel Megawatt.All rights reserved.The emergence in 2011 of the pro-democracy movements of the Arab Spring and the anti-austerity and anti-capitalist movements captured the public’s imagination the world over.

From April-September 2013 we conducted research in Athens, Cairo, London and Yerevan and our aim was to build on and expand the existing research on these new movements, not only by including new sites (e.g., London, Yerevan) thus far overlooked by other scholars, but also by examining the relationship of the activists with more formal civil society actors including non-governmental organisations (NGOs), trade unions, and political parties.   

This article is published under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International licence. If you have any queries about republishing please contact us. Please check individual images for licensing details.

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0