Acosta, Raúl. Civil becomings: performative politics in the Amazon and the Mediterranean. 224 pp., illus, bibliogr. Tuscaloosa: Univ. of Alabama Press, 2020. £47.50 (cloth)

Civil becomings is an ethnographic study of advocacy networks based on field research with a ‘socioenvironmental’ NGO in Brazil in 2004, and with the Mediterranean Social Forum in Barcelona in 2005. Despite the book's long germination before its publication in 2020, it succeeds in remaining relevant today: while readers familiar with the social worlds with which it is directly concerned will recognize how much has changed, and despite the notable absence of digital media as the primary mode of communication in the advocacy world, Acosta's theoretical framing and analysis contribute to ongoing interdisciplinary conversations about political action and the role of civil society.