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Special Issue on Critical Explorations of Crisis: Politics, Precariousness, and Potentialities

(2022) In Global Discourse 12(3-4). p.456-703
Abstract
In a crisis-ridden world, it has become increasingly pertinent to understand the breadth and depth of ‘crisis’. On a daily basis, we are alarmed by crisis reports concerning hurricanes and floods; economic and financial uncertainties; political instability; armed conflict; desperate refugees and migrants; persisting poverty; and outbreaks of aggressive global diseases such as Covid-19. This special issue critically explores ‘crisis’ as a notion, phenomenon, materiality, reality, and experience. Crisis seems to weave our world together as mediatized transnational crisis narrative, sometimes even twisted in populist and apocalyptic ways. But crisis also refers to monumental forces of reality that shatter lifeworlds and communities and thus... (More)
In a crisis-ridden world, it has become increasingly pertinent to understand the breadth and depth of ‘crisis’. On a daily basis, we are alarmed by crisis reports concerning hurricanes and floods; economic and financial uncertainties; political instability; armed conflict; desperate refugees and migrants; persisting poverty; and outbreaks of aggressive global diseases such as Covid-19. This special issue critically explores ‘crisis’ as a notion, phenomenon, materiality, reality, and experience. Crisis seems to weave our world together as mediatized transnational crisis narrative, sometimes even twisted in populist and apocalyptic ways. But crisis also refers to monumental forces of reality that shatter lifeworlds and communities and thus causes pain and societal rupture. Moreover, the intrinsically gendered nature of a crisis, while rarely articulated, impacts crisis interpretation as well as policies implemented to cope with its aftermath. Contrary to its historical usage, crisis might not be felt as a momentary incident (i.e. an emergency) for those involved neither as a promise of constructive change. Rather, a crisis could be experienced as a chronic state of prolonged harm in particular for those who were already in vulnerable positions prior to the crisis. In this special issue we argue for an interdisciplinary field of crisis studies. The various kinds of crisis with which contemporary societies struggle cannot be captured within the conceptual framework of a single discipline. ‘Siloed’ approaches not only obscure learning from one issue to the next, it tends to oversimplify the complex map and intersections of environmental, socio-economic, political, and medical factors that together define a given crisis. A broader and inter-disciplinary focus on crisis brings attention to the transformative character of a crisis and its connections to conditions of uncertainty in predictions, global-local dynamics, politics, precariousness, a ‘post-fact’ environment, the rising tide of populism, and the diversity in human suffering. (Less)
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organization
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Crisis Studies, Crisis, Politics, Social Resilience, Precariousness, Potentialities
in
Global Discourse
editor
LU orcid ; LU orcid ; Gammeltoft-Hansen, Thomas and Berggren, Vanja
volume
12
issue
3-4
pages
456 - 703
publisher
Bristol University Press
ISSN
2043-7897
language
English
LU publication?
yes
additional info
Contributions by: Fassin, Didier; Bergman-Rosamond, Annika; Gammeltoft-Hansen, Thomas; Hamza, Mo; Ramasar, Vasna; Rydstrom, Helle; Walby, Sylvia; Gottfried, Heidi; Vigh, Henrik; London, Jonathan; Nyberg Sørensen, Ninna; Hearn, Jeff; Norocel, Cristian; Jensen, Steffen Bo; Schneidermann, Nanna; Bjarnesen, Jesper; Zhukova, Ekatherina; Fechter, Anne-Meike; Kaur, Ravinder; Andersson, Fredrik NG; Roitman, Janet; Kjaerum, Morten.
id
79b5b58f-b3fb-48eb-8b40-4daf1aa6092b
alternative location
https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/gd/12/3-4/gd.12.issue-3-4.xml
date added to LUP
2020-04-01 14:17:46
date last changed
2024-05-06 10:37:00
@misc{79b5b58f-b3fb-48eb-8b40-4daf1aa6092b,
  abstract     = {{In a crisis-ridden world, it has become increasingly pertinent to understand the breadth and depth of ‘crisis’. On a daily basis, we are alarmed by crisis reports concerning hurricanes and floods; economic and financial uncertainties; political instability; armed conflict; desperate refugees and migrants; persisting poverty; and outbreaks of aggressive global diseases such as Covid-19. This special issue critically explores ‘crisis’ as a notion, phenomenon, materiality, reality, and experience. Crisis seems to weave our world together as mediatized transnational crisis narrative, sometimes even twisted in populist and apocalyptic ways. But crisis also refers to monumental forces of reality that shatter lifeworlds and communities and thus causes pain and societal rupture. Moreover, the intrinsically gendered nature of a crisis, while rarely articulated, impacts crisis interpretation as well as policies implemented to cope with its aftermath. Contrary to its historical usage, crisis might not be felt as a momentary incident (i.e. an emergency) for those involved neither as a promise of constructive change. Rather, a crisis could be experienced as a chronic state of prolonged harm in particular for those who were already in vulnerable positions prior to the crisis. In this special issue we argue for an interdisciplinary field of crisis studies. The various kinds of crisis with which contemporary societies struggle cannot be captured within the conceptual framework of a single discipline. ‘Siloed’ approaches not only obscure learning from one issue to the next, it tends to oversimplify the complex map and intersections of environmental, socio-economic, political, and medical factors that together define a given crisis. A broader and inter-disciplinary focus on crisis brings attention to the transformative character of a crisis and its connections to conditions of uncertainty in predictions, global-local dynamics, politics, precariousness, a ‘post-fact’ environment, the rising tide of populism, and the diversity in human suffering.}},
  editor       = {{Rydström, Helle and Hamza, Mo and Gammeltoft-Hansen, Thomas and Berggren, Vanja}},
  issn         = {{2043-7897}},
  keywords     = {{Crisis Studies; Crisis; Politics; Social Resilience; Precariousness; Potentialities}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{03}},
  number       = {{3-4}},
  pages        = {{456--703}},
  publisher    = {{Bristol University Press}},
  series       = {{Global Discourse}},
  title        = {{Special Issue on Critical Explorations of Crisis: Politics, Precariousness, and Potentialities}},
  url          = {{https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/gd/12/3-4/gd.12.issue-3-4.xml}},
  volume       = {{12}},
  year         = {{2022}},
}