The past decade has seen the emergence of a mass ‘alter-globalization’ movement in many regions of the world. One element in this movement has been the World Social Forum and its continental, regional, national and local spinoffs. In the first half of this article I provide a critical analysis of the social forum experience, particularly the World Social Forum, and outline both those aspects of the experience that are commonly agreed to be successes as well as those that are frequently held to be their failings or limitations. In the second half of the article, I report on a survey of the participants at two Australian social forums in 2004, which details their backgrounds, motivations, attitudes, experience and ambitions. Comparison is made with their closest parallels - the activists from the new social movements of the 1970s and 1980s previously examined by Offe, Touraine, Melucci and others.
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