If there's one phrase I could do with hearing less of during 2002, it's "civil society". I'm not alone. Many of my friends, community activists and organisers in a number of countries also cringe at the ritualized, ubiquitous usage of the phrase. We shudder at the thought that we might be mistaken for being part of it. Civil society is a construct which allows politically and economically powerful institutions to decide who is in, and who is out, when and if it suits their interests. Furthermore, it has the added value of sounding broad and inclusive enough to add a gloss of legitimacy to any institution, programme, or system which can be shown to the public as somehow engaging with civil society, whoever that is.