This panel scrutinizes on rethinking boundaries and inequalities in the context of organizing. With globalization, issues such as corporate social responsibility, social enterprises, and public-private partnerships have gained increasing importance in cross-sectional organizational architectures in different parts of the world. Consequently, these themes have entered also the sphere of international development as agenda set in the SDGs, for instance, emphasizes partnership between different sectors. The promotion of such partnerships is linked to a global spread of neo-liberal approaches to development, which, under the guidance of the IMF and the World Bank and some of the main donor countries, has heavily influenced international development practice, and equally international development studies. These cross-sectional partnerships are supposed to result in better and more efficient service delivery, but also in a promotion of ‘inclusive business and development’ by facilitating market access to the poorest sections of populationsand promoting entrepreneurship amongst them.
In general, the sectoral borders between public, private and civil societyhave become increasingly blurred; and in many contexts, were perhaps never very clear cut at the first place. However, whilst the ideal of cross-sectional collaboration is inviting, when it comes to the practices of organizing around joint issues or alliance-building in order to address joint challenges such as extractives, environmental conservation, human rights, or gaps in service delivery, collisions and clashes between different organizational and institutional logics and perceptions are more than likely to occur.
In this panel we invite both empirical studies that investigate cross-sectional organization processes, their dynamics and impacts, as well astheoretical papers suggesting ways to conceptualise such processes. The panel seeks especially papers that engage in a dialogue between organization and social movement theories, and investigate multiple ways of organizing and alliance-building in relation to either incremental or transformative change.
The panel organizes one session of three papers. The participation of one outstanding paper from a representative from the global South will be financially supported.
Tiina Kontinen, Academy of Finland Research Fellow, Department for Social Sciences and Philosophy, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
Marja Spierenburg, Professor, Department of Anthropology and Development Studies, Radboud University Nijmegen, Netherlands