Polycrisis Network
We live in an era where climate change and natural disasters unfold alongside political and social discord, war, communicable diseases, disruption to food supplies, and many other stressors on the human and more-than-human world. Each one of these can have a devastating impact on individuals and communities across the globe, but what happens when these crises overlap, compounding each other, and we find ourselves in a state of polycrisis?
The Polycrisis Network aims to bring together researchers from across disciplines with professionals from a wide range of sectors. They will create a space to explore how polycrisis can be identified, mapped, analysed and responded to.
“Polycrisis can serve us to understand the emergence, resurgence and disappearance of multiple and simultaneous crises while confronting us to new sets of challenges brought by the endless mutations of normalcy and the ideal of stability. It is in a way a concept that seeks to engage with both the malleability and the plasticity of crises whilst accounting for their relevance in rethinking the political, or, what it means to be together, as a collective fabric in a world of shaking ontological grounds.”
- Polycrisis co-lead Dr Sebastien Nobert
Three strands
In its first year, the network will have three distinct strands of enquiry:
- Mapping polycrisis How do different crises gain movement and recognition and how are they acted upon? Who acts in response to these crises? How does this lead to disruption, duration, and catastrophe?
- Analysing Polycrisis What are the properties and processes involved in interconnected crises and how do they come into being? How do we identify them and what are their effects?
- Transforming Polycrisis How do we understand the rhythms and the potential to learn and act through them, using, for example, our bodies, socially and environmentally, and how can creative methods help this understanding?
“In the first 18 months of this new network we want to start a process of re-thinking the idea of polycrisis. As a collective of people from inside and outside the university we want to: map the interconnection of crises; analyse the properties and processes; and transform our understanding through creative critical methods.”
- Polycrisis co-lead Dr Jez Coram
Through a series of seminars, discussions and the creation of new materials to instigate further exploration and enquiry, the network will offer a wealth of opportunities for those across, and outside of, academia to collaborate, connect and develop the body of work focussed on polycrisis.
Polycrisis Network Leads
Dr Sebastien Nobert is a transdisciplinary social scientist working at the intersection of critical geography and social theory with strong interests in Science and Technology Studies (STS) and the anthropology of risk and disasters. His work has been looking at the wider politics of in/security affecting the management of hazards and risks and the temporalities of crisis management.
Dr Laura Considine is an Associate Professor in International Politics at the University of Leeds. Her current work focuses on conceptualizing nuclear weapons in international politics, feminist and everyday approaches to nuclear weapons and nuclear narratives. Her work has been published in International Affairs, International Theory, Review of International Studies and the European Journal of International Relations.
Dr Jez Coram is an artist and filmmaker, and Lecturer in Digital Media Practice in the School of Media and Communication at the University of Leeds. His scholarship and research are practice-centred and focused on expanded essaying and crises.
If you would like to join the Polycrisis Network, or to receive updates directly to your email inbox, please complete this online form.
“We invite scholars across disciplines who are interested in how to investigate the impacts of complex crises on their work to join us. Through a seminar series, creative outputs and seed funding opportunities we hope to connect researchers at Leeds and beyond with policy actors and communities living, working and responding to a world of multiple, overlapping challenges.”
- Dr Laura Considine
Get in contact
For any queries you may have about the network please contact the Polycrisis co-leads via polycrisis@leeds.ac.uk or visit the Polycrisis Network website
You can also find announcements about upcoming events and opportunities from the Polycrisis Network through the Horizons Institute BlueSky and Horizons Institute LinkedIn accounts.