COMBATING CRISES FROM BELOW: Social responses to polycrisis in Europe

by Kai Heidemann

How can the convergence of multiple cascading crises create a broader disruptive reality of ‘polycrisis’ in society? How do specific social groups and communities develop purposeful responses to the distinctive forms of insecurity and suffering generated by an enduring polycrisis? Through an exploration of multiple types of crises in a variety of geographical settings in Europe and the United Kingdom, the chapters compiled in this book offer fresh insight into how particular groups of people work to combat polycrises ‘from below’. Cumulatively, the chapters offer an interdisciplinary look at the notion of ‘crisis’ by considering how multiple kinds of crisis (ecology, health, economy, democracy, spirituality, etc.) intersect in concrete social settings to produce localized situations of polycrisis characterized by distinctive ‘geometries’ of crises within crises. Kai Heidemann (editor) is Assistant Professor of Sociology at University College Maastricht in the Netherlands. Download the Open Access version at Maastricht University Press - *Amazon edition

260 pages, Paperback

Published July 7, 2023