ABSTRACT
Th e World Social Forum (WSF) has become one of the most sustainable forms of a global counter-movement to neo-liberal development. “Ethics, Cosmovisions, and Spiritualities” emerged as one of the eleven themes of the 2005 WSF held in Porto Alegre, Brazil. Whereas the initial 2001 Forum was conceived as a more professionalized meeting of NGO and social movement leaders, the expansion and increasingly participatory nature of the Forum and its organization was accompanied by a surge in the religio-spiritual dimensions of popular struggle within the WSF. Indeed, many of the most vital popular social movements from around the planet have profound religio-spiritual roots, from the Landless Movement of Brazil (MST) and the Zapatistas of Mexico, to the Chipko Movement of India. However, the spiritual grounding of social movement struggle is oft en overlooked, marginalized or ignored in social movement scholarship and analysis of social alternatives.
