The overall objective of the research group is to study how politics are formed, values are endorsed and ideas are validated in developing societies through global interaction in Africa, Asia and Latin America in particular. The global situation is characterised by deep-seated inequalities. General economic growth has not prevented social, economic, and political dynamics of inequality, impoverishment, marginalisation and human insecurity in the developing world. This has spawned a broad array of political and organisational responses. New forms of politics of identity are gaining prominence, and discourses of culture mobilised as alternative fields for political contestation, or as strategies in response to the emergence of new global insecurities. Individuals, groupings and institutions enter into hegemonic and minority identity constructions and fight for political and cultural space and articulation. Processes of intertwined religious, ethnic and gender identification and related social and cultural movements cut across global, national and local scales, and play a major role both in the working out of the politics of democracy and coexistence and in the hardening of boundaries between people. It is increasingly clear that the state in developing societies represents a variety of figures ranging from highly developed bureaucratic structures to weak or absent institutions, and from authoritarian and repressive institutions to more democratic ones. As a consequence, authority is often constructed and challenged in marginal situations where political authority and public policy are not the preserve of the state alone. These tendencies operate in tandem with a growing demand for human rights and democratisation at all levels, from the everyday dialogue and struggle over gender and generation roles and responsibilities, over the fight for democratic organisation of social movements and institutions, to demands of legitimacy of larger political formations, such as states and nations.