Collective Agency

Guided by a systemic and processual perspective, this research considers meetings as a collective organizational phenomenon and analyses how they contribute to the constitution of organizations.  Longitudinal immersion as a participant observer in one organization’s ‘river of discourse’ prompted initial abductive theory development to conceptualize meetings as a collective phenomenon, rather than studying them as individual-centered events.  Preliminary analysis conducted during data recording indicated collective agency that could not be attributed to individual meetings, nor to the intentionality of meeting participants.  Subsequent bifocal analysis of the meetings’ discourse data reveals modes of meeting connectivity that reflect and contribute to their holistic nature and their agency collectively.  Following a zoomed-out analysis informed by sensemaking and a zoomed-in analysis guided by CCO theory, the research findings indicate that meetings collectively exhibit agency through the hybridicity of three distinct modes of connection – human actors, material artefacts and shared processes - which are reflected in the Meetings as Systemic Process (MaSP) Framework.  The findings also indicate that meetings impact the temporal structuring of the organization and form organizational building blocks with the potential to be deployed as a collective and shared organizational resource.  Implications for meeting practice are deduced from MaSP, proposing ways to refine the operation of meetings as a collective organizational resource, mindful that proposed normative practices and their expected benefits can only be verified through further research.

John Rawls claims that public reasoning is the reasoning of 'equal citizens who as a corporate body impose rules on one another backed by sanctions of state power'. Drawing upon an amended version of Michael Bratman's theory of shared intentions, I flesh out this claim by developing the 'civic people' account of public reason. Citizens realize 'full' political autonomy as members of a civic people. Full political autonomy, though, cannot be realised by citizens in societies governed by a 'constrained proceduralist' account of democratic self-government, or the 'convergence' account of public justification formulated recently by Gerald Gaus and Kevin Vallier.

The Recorrido Arqueológico de Coixtlahuaca (RAC) presents period-by-period settlement pattern maps for the valley of Coixtlahuaca in the northern Mixteca Alta. The RAC project made improvements in full-coverage survey methods. We identify limitations and suggest that similar projects in the future need to resolve several management and budget problems. The survey revealed two periods of heavy occupation, 700–300 BC and AD 1200–1520, separated by a long period of lower population. Archaeological and historical data indicate that during the AD 1200–1520 period, and probably earlier, small landholders organized in strong communities managed an intensive agroecosystem, investing in landesque capital. Urbanization was impressive, yet cities were aggregations of communities and barrios. Today local citizens pose questions about how the large prehispanic population could have organized and sustained itself; these questions coincide with anthropological interest in collective agency, proper...

This paper considers the contribution positive political theory has made to the resolution of “Hobbes’ Problem”—the problem of describing the nature of artificial persons, such as states. This problem plays a central role in both empirical and normative work in political science. Several areas of positive political theory, most notably social choice theory, have shed light on Hobbes’ Problem, and the results have been generally negative. That is to say, they have suggested that the conditions necessary to generate an artificial collective agent out of the individual agents comprising it may be impossible to satisfy,
at least if this is done in a nontrivial way. While efforts to establish the possibility of a collective agent continue—notably in recent work by Christian List and Philip Pettit—the primary accomplishment of positive political theory has been to raise the question of whether Hobbes’ Problem can be solved at all.

This article seeks to describe the challenges and potential of community participation spaces that focus on policies and the exercise of the right to health in Cabo Delgado’s province (Mozambique), namely the Co-Management and Humanization Committees (CMHC). The main challenge in this context is to make the human right to health real through community participation. Participation is both an instrument for the exercise of this right and a human right in itself. It is what enables us to fight for equity in health, through fairer and more transparent processes (recognized by individuals as administrative justice and by communities through the collective voice); and, from a rights perspective, prioritize the most vulnerable and offer them collective agency opportunities / capabilities.

The article is structured around three specific objectives: 1) to expose some of the questions that arise from postcolonial thinking and the importance of finding new tools / responses with a non-Western perspective; 2) to describe possible contributions of the capability approach in its collective dimension; and 3) to present challenges of community participation in Mozambique, through the analysis of experiences of "established" and "claimed" spaces and their potential for monitoring and impact on health.

In order to further deepening, it is fundamental to analyse, in this process of participation in health policies, not only the normative and institutional aspects, of socio-political character, from the local human development approach; but also, the sociocultural determinants that influence this relationship. In this sense, it will be tried to establish bridges within new approaches and concepts such as "ecology of knowledges in health” and "intersectionality".

The preliminary conclusions in this article indicate that: i) postcolonial thinking may be useful to propose new questions and methodological tools in a determined territorial and socio-cultural context; ii) a conceptual / analytical framework from the capability approach (collective capabilities) can be useful in analysing the complexity and interaction between different actors in the same territory; iii) health as a basic social service, as a human right and as a vulnerability factor that discriminates people and societies, raises new challenges in research on spaces for community participation; iv) spaces for community participation in health in Mozambique may be analysed as "established" and "claimed" (created) spaces.

The work of Castaneda, Lewis and Perry convinced many philosophers that so-called de se attitudes (and the first-person perspective in particular) are the source of deep and widereaching philosophical insights. The de se, it is claimed, plays an essential role in giving an account of thought and agency. Others claim that the de se is essential to understanding morality, perception, or epistemic phenomena such as immunity to error through misidentification. 1 The de se deflationists, 2 on the other hand, have argued that the phenomena Lewis and Perry described tell us nothing of philosophical significance. According to the deflationist, Lewis and Perry used new and confusing terminology to describe old and familiar phenomena. This paper is a new defence of the deflationary view. Our focus is on the connections between the de se and agency. We have two central goals:

Without doubt, the global challenges we are currently facing – above all world poverty and climate change – require collective solutions: states, national and international organizations, business corporations and individuals must work together in order to remedy these problems. In this chapter, I discuss climate change mitigation as a collective action problem from the perspective of moral philosophy. In particular, I address and refute three arguments suggesting that business corporations (and other collective agents) may not have to take on their share in reducing greenhouse gas emissions: (i) that business corporations are not appropriate addressees of moral demands because they do not constitute moral agents, and (ii) that to the extent that they are moral agents their primary moral obligation is to their owners or shareholders, and (iii) the appeal to the difference principle: that individual business corporations cannot really make a significant difference to successful climate change mitigation.

Taking off from Adorno's emphatic estimation that we are in need of a new, "strictly Leninist Manifesto" the article argues that collectivity, as a theoretical notion and form of praxis alike, can very well qualify as a critical model despite Adorno's well-founded objections. While Adorno seems at ease when arguing for the critical character of collectivity in his aesthetic writings, he is reluctant to admit to it when it comes to adressing collectivity on the epistemological level. The article argues that - pace Adorno - notions like "constellation", "remainder" or "riddle"  that Adorno introduced in order to rejuvenate philosophy and recast it as a critical theory, designate the very need to express underlying collectivities already at play. The fact that the sancrosanct individual is to be conceived of as "collective in its essence" is also indicative of the inevitability that even the individual has to be collectivized and that its praxis - should it wishes to become critical - can only be a collective one.

Collectives are more or less structured groups of human beings. Responsibility-collectivism is the view that the moral responsibility of at least some such collectives is something over and above the combined moral responsibility of individual group members. This paper focuses on one of the key conditions of responsibility: the requirement of control. It is plausible that this requirement also applies to collective agents and so collective responsibility presupposes group-control. Responsibility-collectivists have often tried to unpack the idea of group-control as non-causal control. I argue that non-causal control is not an admissible basis for attributing responsibility. Only causal group-control is. This is because non-causal group control does not provide the right kind of information regarding the ancestry of a certain outcome. In the second half of the paper, I discuss the difficulties which arise for responsibility-collectivism if one understands group-control as causal group-control. One of these difficulties is whether causal group-control is consistent with ontological individualism. The second concerns the relationship of group-control and individual control. I argue that the first difficulty is manageable, but only at the price of having to accept a solution to the second difficulty which runs counter to the original aim of the responsibility-collectivist of characterizing irreducible collective responsibility as compatible with individual responsibility. Worse still, responsibility-collectivists may have to choose sides in other areas of social ontology as well. This further raises the price of this position.

The Recorrido Arqueológico de Coixtlahuaca (RAC) presents period-by-period settlement pattern maps for the valley of Coixtlahuaca in the northern Mixteca Alta. The RAC project made improvements in full-coverage survey methods. We identify limitations and suggest that similar projects in the future need to resolve several management and budget problems. The survey revealed two periods of heavy occupation, 700–300 BC and AD 1200–1520, separated by a long period of lower population. Archaeological and historical data indicate that during the AD 1200–1520 period, and probably earlier, small landholders organized in strong communities managed an intensive agroecosystem, investing in landesque capital. Urbanization was impressive, yet cities were aggregations of communities and barrios. Today local citizens pose questions about how the large prehispanic population could have organized and sustained itself; these questions coincide with anthropological interest in collective agency, proper...

We introduce a number of logics to reason about collective propositional attitudes that are defined by means of the majority rule. It is well known that majoritarian aggregation is subject to irrationality, as the results in social choice theory and judgment aggregation show. The proposed logics for modelling collective attitudes are based on a substructural propositional logic that allows for circumventing inconsistent outcomes. Individual and collective propositional attitudes, such as beliefs, desires, obligations, are then modelled by means of minimal modalities to ensure a number of basic principles. In this way, a viable consistent modelling of collective attitudes is obtained.

Laclau and Mouffe's theory of populism has been heralded as offering an attractive model for transformative left politics. In light of recent political defeats, this article critically interrogates the limits of populism as a practice of popular enactment and develops an alternative view emphasizing the primacy of political organization. I frame both populism and political organization as rival responses to the ‘paradox of popular agency’: the puzzle of how a heterogeneous multitude might organize itself into a cohesive collectivity. I first turn to Rousseau’s canonical account of the paradox of the people to spell out the dilemma, and schematically offer two contrasting readings of the figure of the lawgiver to illustrate. I then show that Laclau and Mouffe’s theory of populism ultimately purports to respond to the paradox by conceptualizing popular agency as the outcome of the discursive articulation of a charismatic leader. As I explain, this is not only normatively worrisome, but also leaves transformative left politics uniquely vulnerable to defeat. Finally, I develop an account of political organization as an alternative response to the paradox of popular agency, drawing on Gramsci’s account of hegemonic struggle.

Most theories of intentional action agree that if acting for a reason is a necessary condition for the action in question to be an intentional action, the reason need not genuinely justify it. The same should hold for shared intentional action, toward which philosophers of action have recently turned their attention. I argue that some of the necessary conditions proposed for shared intention turn out to require that we deny this claim. They entail that shared intention is possible only if the participating agents form their intentions on the grounds of genuinely rational considerations. Thus, they "over-rationalize," as I call it, shared intention.

Die »Zeitschrift für Kultur- und Kollektivwissenschaft« ist ein Forum, das auf der Grundlage der Kulturwissenschaft eine Kollektivwissenschaft entwickeln möchte. Diese angestrebte neue Disziplin lenkt den Blick auf das Kollektiv als Kulturträger und dient damit zum einen der praktischen Kulturforschung und gewährt zum anderen neuartige Einblicke in das Wesen des Sozialen. Der weit gefasste Begriff des Kollektivs tritt an die Stelle der traditionellen Gruppen- und Gesellschaftskonzepte und macht bisher verborgene Schichten menschlicher Gemeinschaftlichkeit zugänglich.

Die Zeitschrift erscheint zweimal jährlich, wobei sich Themen- und Tagungshefte abwechseln.

Heft 4/1 widmet sich den Verheißungen, Ambivalenzen und Fallstricken von Kollektivitäten. Die Beiträge schildern aus einer interdisziplinären Perspektive die politische Wirkmächtigkeit sowie die Konstitutionsbedingungen von Kollektivitäten. Zentraler Aspekt ist auch die grundlegende Ambivalenz von Kollektivierungsprozessen, die zwischen emanzipatorischem Versprechen und totalisierendem bzw. Differenzen nivellierendem Potenzial verortet sind.

In recent decades, concepts of group agency and the morality of
groups have increasingly been discussed by philosophers. Notions of collective or joint duties have been invoked especially in the debates on global justice, world poverty and climate change. This paper enquires into the possibility and potential nature of moral duties individuals in unstructured groups may hold together. It distinguishes between group agents and groups of people which  – while not constituting a collective agent – are nonetheless capable of performing a joint action. It attempts to defend a notion of joint duties which are neither duties of a group agent nor duties of individual agents, but duties held jointly by individuals in unstructured groups. Furthermore, it seeks to illuminate the relation between such joint duties on the one hand and individual duties on the other hand. Rebutting an argument brought forward by Wringe, the paper concludes that it is not plausible to assume that all humans on earth can together hold a duty to mitigate climate change or to combat global poverty given that the members of that group are not capable of joint action.

After decades in oblivion, collectivities have started becoming to such an extent the focal point of reflexion, so that it wouldn't be farfetched to argue, that we are currently experiencing a collective turn in the field of social sciences. As constitutive factors of the everyday life, it is highly important to examine not only their theoretical status, but also their political (both emancipatory and authoritarian) dynamics and forms. Christian List's and Philip Pettit's book on Group Agency (2011) and the debate that followed, Judith Butler's recent work on a Performative Theory of the Assembly (2015) as well as Axel Honneth's last book on the Idea of Socialism (2015) are indicative of the diverse ways to approach – at least from a philosophical perspective – such notions as the collective, collective action or collective agency. Nevertheless all these various endeavors converge at one point: That of the essential necessity to rethink and readdress the questions of collectivity and detect not only their theoretical foundations, but analyze their political functionality. In the workshop we aim to let those different conceptualizations of the foundation of collectivities encounter one another. Not only do we explicitly want to address the question what makes joint action thinkable, eligible and legitimate; moreover, we want to scrutinize the possibility for collective action and collective agency beyond normative criteria of identity politics and moral/ethical regulative categories. Our scope is thus to discuss the different political, social and socio-cultural preconditions that constitute and condition the creation of collectivities and how they determine not only the form, but also the content of these (collective) struggles. The following guiding-lines are indicative of the conundrum that haunts every occupation with the collective. By highlighting the different vectors towards an analytics of the collective, we want to engage with the participants of the workshop in a discussion about their political impact.

There exist many competing philosophical definitions of joint action and no clear criteria to decide between them; so far the search for definitions has by and large nee, a semantical enterprise rather than an empirical one. This chapters describes and assesses several constraints that could help converge towards a set of necessary and sufficient conditions for joint action. The tightness constraint favours definitions that fit joint actions in which the links between agents are as relaxed as possible, so as to better pinpoint the conceptual core of jointness. The developmental constraint asks for definitions based on realistic psychological states that could be entertained by agents less cognitively developed than ideal human beings. The motor constraint holds that definitions should refer to psychological mechanisms involved in actual human coordination. These first three constraints are discussed and dismissed mainly because they manage to establish vague limits at best (for various reasons). I then introduce a fourth one, the efficiency constraint, based on the fact that most of our joint actions are generally successful, and according to which definitions should involve conditions that help justify this success. Finally, the rational and evolutionary versions of the efficiency constraint are examined and defended against objections.

Collective identities, as literature suggests, are constructed via an emphasis on sameness within a group and in the downplaying of internal difference, while simultaneously drawing boundaries (and often accenting differences) from those they oppose. This study, however, found that collective agency, and resultingly, collective identity, was fueled just as much by a careful negotiation of internal difference as it was a group’s core similarities. Based on interviews with Palestinian, Israeli, and international activists involved in two Palestinian-led coalitions in Israel/Palestine, the study shows how uneven privileges and other differences, could be leveraged for the benefit of the coalitions as a whole, particularly through assessing what each organization and ethno-national group brought to the collective. When members enacted their closely negotiated and distinct roles, the coalition’s sense of “we” was further solidified, thereby illuminating their collective agency and togetherness. Indeed, as this article illustrates, difference as well as unequal privileges, can be perceived as a defining feature of a strategically constructed collective identity and the reason for a partnership, not simply a problem to be managed.

En la provincia de Cabo Delgado, norte de Mozambique, poco a poco, se van generando distintas iniciativas que promueven la participación ciudadana y comunitaria en los respectivos procesos de toma de decisión que podrán conducir a un desarrollo local más participativo. De una forma u otra, se pueden identificar espacios con los cuáles la población se siente cada vez más identificada, donde comienza a verificarse una mayor pertinencia en la existencia de esos mismos espacios y donde se incrementan los temas discutidos por la población.

Commenting Theodor W. Adorno's doctrine of the 'predominance of the objective' and Wladimir I. Lenin's 'theory of reflection' Slavoj Žižek debunks in his Afterword. Lenin's Choice externality as regression to the " pseudo-problematic of the thought asymptotically approaching the ever-elusive 'objective reality', never able to grasp it in its infinite complexity. " (p. 179) Instead of " clinging to the minimum of objective reality outside the thought's subjective mediation " (ibid.) Žižek argues for an understanding of materialism that insists " on the absolute inherence of the external obstacle which prevents thought from attaining full identity with itself. " (ibid.) With this understanding of materialism as point of departure I go on to claim that collective agency per se can be understood only materialistically. The latter entails that the source of collective agency cannot be bestowed to a certain individual capacity, since this would coincide with a regression to individualist understanding of agency. At the same time though and according to the above mentioned definition, this external source – that for the same reasons cannot be an individual – has to become inherent to the subject in order to prevent it from unravelling its full identity. Seen this way, I claim, on a second step, that this parameter can be realized only through a theory that acknowledges the subject as a socially constituted entity. Through its creation this subject reproduces the practices that brought it forth and thus it internalizes them as a part of itself. On a first level the subject is being prevented – through its social constitution – to attain its full identity, because it is permanently irritated through the external norms that incessantly make it reconfigure itself. On a second level though the subject is being prevented from becoming an individual because of the clash of discourses, identities and ways of production that encounter each other as a subject through those various processes of subjectivation that culminate in the social construction of the subject. Out of the latter not just (individual) agency is being rendered inherent to the subject; a claim that Judith Butler has already convincingly underpinned in her Contingent Foundations when she asserted that " the constituted character of the subject is the very precondition of its agency " (p. 46). Moreover, collective agency seems also to emanate out of these subjectivation processes as an intrinsic agential mode of the subject, immanent to its own constitutional process. In this regard collective agency is materialistic in a threefold way: (a) because it does not require the legitimization of a subject in order to be conceived; (b) because it never allows the subject to consolidate itself; (c) because it is inherent to the subject qua its own process of constitution. The main political gain of this framework is that whereas collective action remains a matter of the Political concerning the domains it can/ought to be implemented, collective agency is to be located at the Social thus becoming an undisputed social-ontological condition of the subject in question.

I focus on the question of agency: how is collective agency constituted through practices in queer spaces? To answer this question, I will present some of my material that I gained in spaces where queer people linger or stay or which are labelled as queer. The starting point of my argument is the question of agency of marginalised subjects beyond the idea of a sovereign subject. My thesis is that in queer spaces collective agency is constituted by different elements, human and non-human. I argue that in queer safer spaces, affects are one crucial element to constitute collective agency which can cause accumulative processes with transformative potential. Firstly, I will give you an idea of my understanding of agency, followed by one example, and secondly, I will explain the different elements engaging in the production of collective agency in safer spaces such as certain practices, norms, spacial design and bodies. Thirdly, I will elaborate how affects and collective agency can produce an accumulation of practices and come back to my first example. While collective agency is produced in queer spaces, accumulative effects are not bound to such spaces.

We present a number of modal logics to reason about group norms. As a preliminary step, we discuss the ontological status of the group to which the norms are applied, by adapting the classification made by Christian List of collective attitudes into aggregated, common, and corporate attitudes. Accordingly, we shall introduce modality to capture aggregated, common, and corporate group norms. We investigate then the principles for reasoning about those types of modalities. Finally, we discuss the relationship between group norms and types of collective responsibility.

We present a number of modal logics to reason about group norms. As a preliminary step, we discuss the ontological status of the group to which the norms are applied, by adapting the classification made by Christian List of collective attitudes into aggregated, common, and corporate attitudes. Accordingly, we shall introduce modality to capture aggregated, common, and corporate group norms. We investigate then the principles for reasoning about those types of modalities. Finally, we discuss the relationship between group norms and types of collective responsibility.

Guided by a systemic and processual perspective, this research considers meetings as a collective organizational phenomenon and analyses how they contribute to the constitution of organizations. Longitudinal immersion as a participant observer in one organization’s ‘river of discourse’ prompted initial abductive theory development to conceptualize meetings as a collective phenomenon, rather than studying them as individual-centered events. Preliminary analysis conducted during data recording indicated collective agency that could not be attributed to individual meetings, nor to the intentionality of meeting participants. Subsequent bifocal analysis of the meetings’ discourse data reveals modes of meeting connectivity that reflect and contribute to their holistic nature and their agency collectively. Following a zoomed-out analysis informed by sensemaking and a zoomed-in analysis guided by CCO theory, the research findings indicate that meetings collectively exhibit agency through th...

The Recorrido Arqueológico de Coixtlahuaca (RAC) presents period-by-period settlement pattern maps for the valley of Coixtlahuaca in the northern Mixteca Alta. The RAC project made improvements in full-coverage survey methods. We identify limitations and suggest that similar projects in the future need to resolve several management and budget problems. The survey revealed two periods of heavy occupation, 700-300 BC and AD 1200-1520, separated by a long period of lower population. Archaeological and historical data indicate that during the AD 1200-1520 period, and probably earlier, small landholders organized in strong communities managed an intensive agroecosystem, investing in landesque capital. Urbanization was impressive, yet cities were aggregations of communities and barrios. Today local citizens pose questions about how the large prehispanic population could have organized and sustained itself; these questions coincide with anthropological interest in collective agency, property, landesque capital, and collapse. En este artículo se presentan los mapas del patrón de asentamiento por período del

The paper argues that group attitudes can be assessed in terms of standards of rationality and that group-level rationality need not be due to individual-level rationality. But it also argues that groups cannot be collective epistemic agents and are not collectively responsible for collective irrationality. I show that we do not need the concept of collective epistemic agency to explain how group-level irrationality can arise. Group-level irrationality arises because even rational individuals can fail to reason about how their attitudes will combine with those of others. In some cases they are morally responsible for this failure, in others they are not. Moreover, the argument for collective epistemic agency is incoherent because reasons-for-groups are ipso facto reasons-for-individual(s). Instead of talking about reasons-for-groups, we should therefore distinguish between self-regarding reasons and group-regarding reasons. Both kinds of reasons are reasons-for-individuals. These conceptual considerations in favour of moderate individualism are strengthened by an analysis of our moral practice of responding to collective shortfalls of rationality and by the unpalatable moral implications of collectivism about epistemic agency. There is no need to change the subject. Groups can be rational or irrational, but they do not reason.

Raising collective agency is key to successful place-based development approaches. Existing policy arrangements have, however, been criticised, suggesting a need to effectuate more collaborative modes of governance. This paper shall contribute to a better understanding of how public support can best be arranged to raise collective agency for a more collaborative mode of governance in rural areas. The paper elaborates on findings of empirical investigations conducted within the EU FP7 project DERREG. It will be shown that differences in effectuating more collaborative modes of governance can partly be ascribed to different political dynamics, economic and demographic situations as well as the presence of a shared sense of place. To raise collective agency effectively requires a joint reconsideration and restructuring of the division of roles and tasks, including those of public administration. This can be supported by facilitating joint reflexivity among development actors and giving room for collaborative leadership and operational flexibility within policy arrangements.

ABSTRACT The purpose of this paper is to address three major shortcomings of Sen’s capability approach with regard to sustainability: (i) First, the weakness of the ecological dimension of the capability framework. This can be overcome by devising a place where it is possible to relate the intrinsic and instrumental values of Nature; (ii) Second, the issue of responsibility, which is only considered from a consequentialist viewpoint by Sen (i.e. ex-post responsibility). Such a restrictive view can be extended by adding the exante dimension of responsibility; (iii) Third, the relationship between the individual and collective levels. This can be overcome by introducing the idea of collective agency. Overcoming these limitations makes it possible to fully integrate the ecological dimension into an extended vision of the capability approach which makes it consistent with strong sustainability, and which leads to a new definition of the agent as a responsible person acting so as to generate sustainable human development

Political guilt, Jaspers says, results in 'my having to bear the consequences of the deeds of the state whose power governs me and under whose order I live.’ It belongs to all citizens whatever they did or failed to do and it can extend to future generations. What is the justification of political guilt, especially in those states where crimes were committed under a dictatorship (as in Nazi Germany)? I argue that the interests of individuals in being members of a group that can act as an intergenerational agent provides an answer to this question.

How can emotions and affects contribute to practices of social critique and transformations? In this presentation, I focus on the critical and transformative role and significance of collective emotions. I discuss this issue by relying on three sets of resources: 1. Current debates in social ontology around collective or shared action/agency and collective or shared feelings/emotions. 2. Social movements studies that employ notions of "collective effervescence" (Durkheim) or "emotional energy" (Randall), useful for stressing the affective character of collective emotions. 3. An example from the most recent feminist wave (from #MeToo to #WeToogether or #WeStrike)

This article is based on the conceptual framework of Local Human Development (LHD) and the collective capabilities approach, as well as on the authors' own experiences in Cabo Delgado’s province (Mozambique), from the application and responsibility in the health sector public policies of planning and cooperation.
In this way, it endeavours to describe the challenges and potential of the community participation spaces that influence the policies and the exercise of the right to health in this territory, namely the Co-Management and Humanization Committees (CcGH). The main challenge in this context is to make the human right to health real through community participation. Participation is both an instrument for the exercise of this right and a human right in itself. It is what enables us to strive for greater equity in health through fairer and more transparent processes; and, from a rights-based approach, to prioritize the most vulnerable and to offer them collective agency capabilities.
It is fundamental to analyse, in this process of participation in health policies, not only the normative and institutional aspects, of socio-political nature, from the LHD approach, but also, the sociocultural determinants that influence the same relationship.
The preliminary conclusions in this article indicate that: i) postcolonialism thinking allows proposing new questions and methodological tools in a specific territorial and socio-cultural context; (ii) a conceptual / analytical framework based on the collective capabilities and LHD approach can be useful in analysing the complexity and interaction between different actors in the same territory; (iii) health as a basic social service, human right and vulnerability factor that discriminates people and societies, raises new challenges for us in research on community participation spaces; iv) spaces for community participation in health in Mozambique can be analysed as "established" and "claimed" (created) spaces.