Tribalism’s Troubles : Responding to Rowan Williams edited by Damien Freeman

In this volume, twelve essayists, including Senator Amanda Stoker and the ABC’s Scott Stephens, respond to Overcoming Political Tribalism, an address delivered by Rowan Williams as the third PM Glynn Lecture on Religion, Law and Public Life. The collection offers a number of perspectives on Williams’s central claim that moving beyond political tribalism requires the building of a culture in which perspectives can interact and interrogate one another and themselves.

“beyond political tribalism lie a deeper literacy about our histories, a commitment to identifying the grammar of a common language, and the work of negotiating a shared future by looking for solutions that have a degree of durability and credibility even if they are no-one’s ideal.”

– Rowan Williams

Foreword by Margaret Beazley

Introduction by Damien Freeman 

1. The reasonable poet and the clamour of the crowd -- Nigel Zimmermann 

2. Overcoming intellectual fragility -- Amanda Stoker 

3. Tribalism as anti-politics -- Ben Etherington 

4. Are shared languages enough? -- Anthony Ekpo 

5. Overcoming tribalist colonialism -- Cristina Lledo Gomez

6. Mutual recognition -- Kerry Pinkstone 

7. Orientalism, learning and tribalist violence -- Austin Wyatt 

8. Digital tribalism -- Ethan Westwood 

9. Defending the ‘I’ in tribe -- Sandra C. Jones 

10. Sustaining society -- Annette Pierdziwol 

11. Two concepts of legitimacy -- M. A. Casey 

12. Refusing the politics of despair -- Scott Stephens