ABSTRACT
Building broad constituencies takes face-to-face organising, using the skill of listening and recognising that people are experts about their own problems. Shifting the balance to people as the starting point may require skill-building and experimentation for a generation that have relied on policy and technical frameworks to guide their way. Some days it feels like the tectonic plates of power are shifting so dramatically that the world will catch fire. Unchecked corporate power, often with government collusion, drives obscenely low wages, privatised costly public services, illegal land and water grabs, displacement, surveillance for profit, and attacks on communities and women activists defending rights and justice. Many civil society actors are unprepared for the conflict provoked by their strategies that challenge dominant worldviews and expose abuses of power. Structures of power – corporate boards, governmental bodies, public–private partnerships, philanthropic endeavours – are rife with contradictions that create opportunities for change.
