Re-visiting Key Themes 
 

 

This issue of the Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal picks up a number of the themes 

discussed in previous issues. For the first time, we are reprinting an article previously 

published in another journal; our open access policy brings scholarly articles within the reach 

of many who would otherwise be unable to read them. 

 

Grassroots community engagement is a theme in two of the papers. Cunningham and 

Wearing have analysed how consensus decision-making works in an ecovillage. Edwards, 

Burridge and Yerbury explored how small grassroots organisations engage in the 

measurement and reporting of social impact. Two of the papers take an intersectional 

approach. Adami introduces the notion of intersectional dialogue which can be used to study 

the ‘cosmopolitan space’ in which different axes of power met in the historical drafting of the 

Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Chiang, Low and Collins use an intersectional 

approach to examine the experiences of Asian immigrant women entrepreneurs in Australia 

and Canada. Davy investigates ways that effectiveness can be understood in the context of 

Transnational Advocacy Networks in the Greater Mekong Subregion.  

 

Healy and Magnani are both concerned with aspects of bio-politics. Healy juxtaposes an 

analysis of affective bio-politics with existing analyses of the affective and performative 

dimensions to activist politics to facilitate the identification of specific opportunities for 

further affective constestationary strategies. Magnani argues that financial shocks shape the 

biosphere at the intersection between labour and life. 

 

Finally, in a reprinted piece, Moustafine explores the Russian diasporic community of Harbin 

in north China, the geo-political forces underpinning the various waves of migration of 

Russians into and out of Harbin and complex issues of identity and citizenship, with 

particular reference to the Jewish community. 

 

Hilary Yerbury 

 12 August 2013 

Cosmopolitan Civil Societies Journal, Vol.5, No.2, 2013 i 
ISSN: 1837-5391;  http://utsescholarship.lib.uts.edu.au/epress/journals/index.php/mcs 
CCS Journal is published under the auspices of UTSePress, Sydney, Australia