Courageous Citizens

This book highlights the change-making capacity of culture by exploring the intellectual and practical interventions of ‘courageous citizens’. Courageous citizens are those—thinkers, artists, activists and collectives—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 towards a collective future and show courage and perseverance amid 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: 1) Identity and Diversity, 2) Culture, Communities and Democracies; and 3) Solidarity and Fragmentation. It shows how courageous citizens have activated the cycle of (re-)thinking, doing and changing, inherent to remodelling the way we view the world. Combining theoretical perspectives with case studies and ‘stories of change’, this book wants to demonstrate the potential of culture to generate positive social change.
About the European Cultural Foundation:
ECF is an independent and impact driven foundation that accelerates, catalyses, connects and communicates civil society initiatives in arts and culture – rethinking and building Europe as an open, inclusive and democratic space. ECF supports cultural change-makers and their projects through our grants, exchanges, online platforms and incubator programmes. ECF highlights stellar examples of culture as a force of positive change through the ECF Princess Margriet Award for Culture. We connect the local to the European, the grassroots to the policy, and facilitate collaboration.