Social participation and civic engagement are fundamental for democratic societies, assuming that citizens have an interest in actively shaping their living conditions.
The theoretical and empirical contributions of the volume examine the concrete interaction of people and the constant modifications of social conditions through social reference. Using the example of various civil society initiatives located in the discourse of sustainability, we explicitly ask about grassroots processes from which social experience and political as well as socio-cultural spaces can emerge due to actual social cooperation. With contributions by Davide Brocchi, ZIN junior scholar Benjamin Görgen, ZIN-member Matthias Grundmann, Niklas Haarbusch, Jessica Hoffmann, Iris Kunze, Frank Osterlo, Ferdinand Stenglein, Sebastian Stockmann, Judith Vey, Alina Vogelgesang and ZIN junior scholar Björn Wendt.