This paper argues that political representation in transnational civil society networks needs to be investigated as practice with regard to its flexibility, relationality and dialogical agency. Analysis of transnational representation from a practice-theoretical perspective can facilitate a better understanding of the actual representation practices of civil society actors in a transnational setting. The question raised is this: how do representation practices ensue, change or shift within the broader structures in which they are embedded? By focusing on flexibility, relationality and dialogical agency as the key theoretical concepts for representation practice, this study delves deeper into those aspects through empirical analysis of qualitative interviews with activists from two major transnational civil society networks: the Clean Clothes Campaign and Friends of the Earth. The study finds that transnational representation in civil society networks evolves in a non-linear fashion, is characterised by shifting agency, discursive claims and a disembodiment of representation. The paper concludes with a discussion of how future research can pursue such critical engagement without falling back into standard, static notions of political representation.

中文翻译：

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代表作为实践：跨国公民社会中的能动性和关系

本文认为，跨国公民社会网络中的政治代表需要在灵活性、关系性和对话代理方面作为实践进行研究。从实践理论的角度分析跨国代表有助于更好地理解跨国环境中公民社会行为者的实际代表实践。提出的问题是：表征实践如何在它们所嵌入的更广泛的结构中发生、改变或转移？本研究将灵活性、关系性和对话代理作为代表实践的关键理论概念，通过对来自两个主要跨国公民社会网络的活动家的定性访谈的实证分析，深入探讨了这些方面：干净的衣服运动和地球之友。研究发现，公民社会网络中的跨国代表以非线性方式演变，其特点是代理转移、话语主张和代表的脱离。本文最后讨论了未来的研究如何能够在不陷入政治代表的标准静态概念的情况下追求这种批判性参与。