Date of publishing:

15.12.2022

DOI:  https://doi.org/10.21104/CL.2022.4.02

Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International. The Český lid provides open access to all of its content under license
Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.

Abstract:

The condition of civil society and grassroots activism in post-socialist countries are often perceived as a distorted mirroring of the Western equivalent – impaired or even flawed. Especially in places such as monotowns in Donbas region of Ukraine symptoms of grassroots activism and signs of thriving civil society rooted in local modes of understandings are often overlook when only scrutinized with use of Western-based concepts and ideas. In this article based on ethnographical research conducted in span of several months I argue that the big NGO workers’ perception of local notions of activism in Donbas monotown are fueled by hope and sense of peripherity that shapes local dynamics of activism and engagement that forms the idea of civil society.

Keywords

civil society, activism, monotown, periphery, Ukraine

Article Text

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