Open AccessIndigenizing “civil society” in Serbia What local fund-raising reveals about class and trust
Author(s) -
Marek Mikuš
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
focaal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.257
H-Index - 18
eISSN - 1558-5263
pISSN - 0920-1297
DOI - 10.3167/fcl.2015.710105
Subject(s) - civil society , elite , raising (metalworking) , subject (documents) , middle class , political science , sociology , relevance (law) , class (philosophy) , political economy , public administration , law , politics , geometry , mathematics , library science , computer science , artificial intelligence
This article reconsiders established anthropological knowledge about postsocialist “civil society” through an analysis of recent efforts of Serbian nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to reduce their dependence on foreign donors and develop “local fund-raising” from individuals and businesses. These initiatives had to address widespread suspicion toward NGOs, which confirms earlier findings about their donor-driven origins and the class divide between them and the surrounding society. Nevertheless, the article shows that the fund-raising activists strove to overcome suspicion and indigenize civil society. While anthropologists tend to portray NGO workers as a transnationalized elite, they are more adequately described as a middle-class faction currently subject to a process of precarization. The article also shows how the NGO workers' strategies to overcome suspicion, drawing variously on the global models of rational philanthropy, populist modes of self-presentation, or pre-existing ties to new donors, obscured or reduced the relevance of the class divide.