A special meeting of the EUI-STG Democracy Forum, the EUI “TD21” Interdisciplinary Research Cluster and Citizens Take Over Europe in collaboration with the European Civic Forum.
Twenty years ago, in November 2002, tens of thousands of activists, trade unionists, NGOs and civil society campaigners gathered in Florence as part of the first European Social Forum to call for an alternative model of globalisation capable of delivering global justice.
On the anniversary of the 2002 Florence event, as diverse groups of social actors gather in the city once again, the EUI-STG forum will host a special meeting to assess what is needed in order to deliver on the promise of alter-globalisation in the era of planetary politics. Among other things we will be asking:
What are the ideas and frames we need to uphold from the alter-globalisation agenda? While western countries continue to turn a blind eye to their colonial past and present, people of the global majority – those on the frontline of many global emergencies – are denied real agency in designing solutions. Fair distribution of pain and gain across the world, global historical and redistributive justice, the import of colonial legacies, are all frames we have inherited from this prior era. How are they still relevant and how should they be transformed?
More specifically, to what extent can or should the ‘social forum model’ be revitalised?