Courageous Citizens: How Culture Contributes to Social Change

This book highlights the change-making capacity of culture by exploring the intellectual and practical interventions of "courageous citizens." These citizens can be thinkers, artists, activists and collectives―those whose thoughts, ideas and actions play a pivotal role in the struggle for just societies. It is these change-makers who, through their everyday actions, work toward a collective future and complex societal reconfigurations.

Looking back at the past decade, this book identifies three themes which have been, and continue to be, relevant to social change: identity and diversity; culture, communities and democracies; and solidarity and fragmentation. It shows how courageous citizens have activated the cycles of thinking and rethinking, doing and changing, which have altered the way we view the world. Combining theoretical perspectives with case studies, this book aims to demonstrate the potential of culture to generate positive social change.