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Cosmopolitan or Colonial? The World Social Forum as ‘contact zone’

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  • Janet Conway

Abstract

Although the impressive diversity of the World Social Forum (WSF) is regularly noted, there has been little analytical work done on the degree to which the praxis of the WSF is enabling communicability across previously unbridged difference and how relations of power, particularly the coloniality of power, shape these interactions. Based on extensive participant observation at the WSF, this article analyses the ‘open space’ of the WSF as a ‘contact zone’ that, in different facets of this complex praxis, is both cosmopolitan and colonial. The author employs the differing conceptions of the contact zone, drawing on the work of Boaventura de Sousa Santos and Mary Louise Pratt, in dialogue with notions of coloniality and colonial difference arising from Latin American studies to illumine the analysis.

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  • Janet Conway, 2011. "Cosmopolitan or Colonial? The World Social Forum as ‘contact zone’," Third World Quarterly, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(2), pages 217-236.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:ctwqxx:v:32:y:2011:i:2:p:217-236
    DOI: 10.1080/01436597.2011.560466
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    Cited by:

    1. Llewellyn Leonard, 2014. "The World Social Forum as a sub-political space for environmental justice: The case for South African grassroots empowerment within a network society," Journal of Social and Development Sciences, AMH International, vol. 5(4), pages 238-244.
    2. Singh, J.P. & Flyverbom, Mikkel, 2016. "Representing participation in ICT4D projects," Telecommunications Policy, Elsevier, vol. 40(7), pages 692-703.

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