August 10, 13:00 – 15:30
University of Quebec in Montreal
Pavillion SH (Local SH-2580)
200, rue Sherbrooke Ouest
Montreal, QC, Canada

This activity aims to discuss and analyze the breaking of social contracts in the current fierce world, as well as the fragility of our democracies in the current context. We will highlight intersecting forms of social injustice and what it will take for social movements and civil society to resist and transcend the overwhelming forces of globalization that threaten our victories in terms of rights.

The way we use the term ‘social contract’ is embedded in the political economy of power and inequality at multiple levels and in varied forms. For DAWN, a social contract is a collective agreement that is built on and imbued with power. The fracturing of existing social contracts can come from many sources: social movements, technological changes, institutional and cultural transformations, and of course economic and ecological pressures. Our reading of recent history uses this open and flexible meaning of social contracts to analyze what is and what ought to be from the perspective of social justice and human rights.
The early twenty-first century has been marked globally by the war on terror and the financial and economic crisis. Beneath these headlines, however, lie other phenomena of no less importance – climate change and a host of related ecological crises, as well as a backlash against advances towards social justice and human rights for all. Even deeper beneath the surface lies the drastic transformation of the world of work towards flexibility and precariousness that shapes what is possible and probable by way of social policies. A ‘fierce new world’ has been born – full of shaken premises, complicated contradictions, serious fractures, severe backlash, broken promises and uncertain outcomes for the world’s peoples.

We believe this year WSF is an ideal space to have this discussion with social movements, considering in the background our feminist concerns in this fierce new world.