Civil society in Mozambique: NGOs, religion, politics and witchcraft

  • Our aim is to problematise the dominant discourses and practices around civil society from a Southern perspective. We first examine critically, from a broadly Gramscian perspective, the way in which the concept of civil society has been deployed in development discourse. This highlights its highly normative and North-centric epistemology and perspectives. We also find it to be highly restrictive in a post-colonial Southern context insofar as it reads out much of the grassroots social interaction, deemed ‘uncivil’ and thus not part of duly recognised civil society. This is followed by a brief overview of some recent debates around civil society in Africa which emphasise the complexity of civil society and turn our attention to some of the broader issues surrounding state-society relations, democracy and representation in a Third World context, exemplified through our case study research in Mozambique, Inhassunge district (Zambézia Province). The privileging of Western-type Non-governmental organizations (NGOs) as drivers of democracy and participatory development in Mozambique have considerable implications for current debates around good governance, civil society strengthening and social accountability programmes and strategies.

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Metadaten
Author:Tanja Kleibl, Ronaldo Munck
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2016.1217738
Parent Title (English):Third World Quarterly
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Year of publication:2017
Release Date:2023/08/31
Volume:38
Issue:1
First Page:203
Last Page:218
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