Networks are everywhere: from migrant organisations to information technology, from business to social movements, from international governance to global non-governmental organisations, from theatrical collectives to fan clubs, from memory sites to narrative circles. The portmanteau terms networks, and more specifically, global networks, seem to have become the mots du jour in contemporary cultural and social studies. But what cultural, social and political work do global networks accomplish: what is the work of these networks? This path-breaking collection follows Graeme Thompson’s rallying cry for a clearer analytical approach to the ways in which networks are ‘enacted, assembled, conducted, and performed.’ In its thirteen chapters, scholars from a variety of fields — sociology, theatre and performance studies, peace studies, history, and musicology — as well as social and cultural activists, explore the multiple meanings of global networks and performance.