This session, named « Convergence: all for a better world, but all fragmented? » will take place on October 27th, from 3:00 till 6:00 P.M. CET., on Zoom.

Democratic civic actors usually share similar values and aspirations for a just and sustainable world; however, they often consider the issue they deal with as the entry point to achieve a different and better society and world and the most urgent to tackle. As the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the systemic connections of the multiple crises the world is facing, it highlighted the urgency for new approaches to look at each other and work together, including the intersectionality of each issue at stake.

The mistrust, competition and self-sufficiency that sometimes characterises relationships between civic actors with different theories of change and ways of organising are obstacles for developing convergences. In this regard, in the last year, both the experiences of Black Lives Matter and the Polish Women Movement have been able to transform a one-issue movement in a space of convergence for large parts of the democratic civil society in their own countries, and they both have been a sign of counter-tendence to fragmentation. In some European countries and in other continents the pandemic brought different social actors to converge around the issue of “care”, as a shared vision for projecting a new society.

5 breakout groups will enable all participants to exchange thoroughly on specific topics:

📍 Towards a society of care: How are social movement across Europe approachingthe need to build convergence among different democratic agendas amidst theCOVID-19 crisis?

Host: Anastasia Kavada, University of Westminster

📍 Uniting all for a Just Transition: how to promote a unifying approach acrossdiverse stakeholders to overcome the differences in methods to promote social justice?

Host: Andrea Casamenti & Elisa Gambardella, SOLIDAR & SOLIDAR Foundation

📍 Towards an ecology of social movements: how can we build capacity forworking across difference and diversity within our movements and civil society?

Host: Gee & Ilaj Zaremba, ULEX project

📍  Intersectionalism: How is the environmental movement approaching theintegration of racial justice, social justice and gender equality in its narrativeand action?

Host: Shenna Sanchez, Friends of the Earth

📍  How has the health crisis catalysed and accelerated prior and deep-rootedmutations of civic engagement? Learning from the French case study

Host: Floriant Covelli, Institut français du Monde associatif

More information on the breakout groups can be found here: https://civic-forum.eu/wp-content/uploads/2021/10/Breakout-groups-briefing.pdf

Register here: https://forms.office.com/r/73eYrJwhri

Full programme accessible here.