In October 2016, the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Earthrise Trust collaborated in hosting the first in a series of dialogues on the future of society and the state. Both organisations, aware of the multiple crises across the globe, sought to contextualise issues and create a dialogical space to interrogate the most pressing issues and to develop a way forward.
The first focus group developed a number of key lines of inquiry for further dialogue to take place in an open setting, and on 27 and 28 June 2017, a dialogue event on the question of reimagining state and society was held at the Nelson Mandela Foundation (NMF). Titled “(Re)imagining the Future of Society and the State”, and co-hosted by the NMF, Earthrise Trust and the Hanns Seidel Foundation, this dialogue offered itself as an opportunity to reflect on the meaning of “civil society” in the South African context.