Navigating a ‘Shrinking Space’: Selective In/Visibilities and EU Engagement with Civil Society in Azerbaijan

Abstract

In a context of legal and political repression, wherein even EU funding came to be politicised, Azerbaijan’s civic space has been shrinking. This article problematises EU engagement with civil society in the neighbourhood by examining its on-the-ground negotiation in a complex field of visibility. It argues that human rights groups in Azerbaijan strategically activate selective in/visibilities to navigate the competing understandings of civil society's role mobilised by the European Union and the authoritarian state. While EU support deepens the dichotomy of independent versus government-organised civil society, the emergence of new subject positions beyond the NGO realm prefigures a critique of neoliberal donor–recipient ties.