Society for Critical Studies of Crisis (SCSC)

Related to the Resilience Initiative, Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University.

Current activities

Tuesday meetings: Crisis Inequalities and Social Resilience (CISR) Network 

Meetings are held every second Tuesday during the spring of 2024. In these meetings, we identify innovative and critical approaches to social resilience as intersected with crisis inequalities. Everybody is welcome! The next meeting will be held on January 23, 15.15-16.45. 

For details contact Soumi Banerjee at: soumi.banerjee@soch.lu.se

Inter-resilience symposium

Interdisciplinary Resilience Mechanisms in Crisis: Nov 16, 2023 as well as an upcoming symposium in Hamburg, Germany, in June 2024. Collaboration funded by the ‘Lund-Hamburg Grant’, which includes scholars from the social sciences, law, psychology, and philosophy at the University of Hamburg and Lund University.

Thematic workshop: Crisis Inequalities and Social Resilience 

28-29 May 2024
The aim of the workshop is to critically examine conceptualizations of crisis (including ‘polycrisis’) and social resilience and how they may entangle in various social worlds.

For more information on the course read here:

English: https://www.lunduniversity.lu.se/lubas/i-uoh-lu-GNVO01 

Swedish: https://www.lu.se/lubas/i-uoh-lu-GNVO01

Syllabus and Readings: Gender studies: Crisis – Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives (6 credits) | Department of Gender Studies (lu.se)

Funded by the ‘Lund-Hamburg Grant’ 

Host: Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University, Sweden. 

Venue: Biskopshuset, Biskopsgatan 1, 223 62 Lund, Sweden.

SYMPOSIUM PROGRAMME:

09.00-09.15: Arrival 

09.15-09.30: 

Nils Gustafsson, Lund University: Resilience Initiative at Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University. 

Helle Rydstrom, Lund University: “InterResilience -Interdisciplinary Resilience Mechanisms in Crisis”.

Chair: Henrik Thorén

09.30-10.30: Julian Reid, University of Lapland: Is an Interdisciplinary Synthesis of Resilience Possible? 

(45 mins presentation + 15 minutes Q&A) 

10.30-10.45: Coffee break 

Chair: Anne Dienelt

10.45-11.45: Samantha Copeland, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands: Scales, relations and components: Interdisciplinary Resilience as Fugue

(45 mins presentation + 15 minutes Q&A) 

11.45-13.00: Lunch 

Chair: Larissa Zwar

13.00-13.20: Azher Hameed Qamar, Lund University: Concept of social resilience as a social construct and its interdisciplinary connections 

13.25-13.45: Sara Kauko, Lund University: Cultural imaginaries of social resilience: Reflections from Argentina.

13.50-14.10: Martin Lundqvist, Lund University: Memetic social resilience? Exploring memes about political violence in present-day Belfast, Northern Irelan 

14.15-14.45: Coffee break 

Chair: Helle Rydstrom

14.45-15.05: Henrik Thorén, Lund University: Values in Resilience Research 

15.10-15.30: Anne Dienelt, University of Hamburg: Resilience and the Legal Discipline 

15.35-15.55: Larissa Zwar, University of Hamburg: Resilience in the care context of (older) adults 

16.00.-16.20: Soumi Banerjee, Lund University: Performing Agency in Shrinking Spaces: Acting Beyond the Resilience–Resistance Binary 

16.20-16.40: Mine Islar, Lund University: Himalayan glacier change and society responses.

16.40-17.00: Break

17.00-17.30: Concluding discussion

In preparation for this session, please consider what themes, issues, and questions need to be further or differently studied to advance the field of resilience studies, as related to various crises. The session is intended to allow for reflections on the possibility of collecting contributions to a Special Issue on Resilience. 

18.00: Dinner: Before November 13, participants confirm if they will join the dinner.

Contact Soumi Banerjee at: soumi.banerjee@soch.lu.se

Under the Lifelong Learning (EduLab) theme, an interdisciplinary course on Crisis will be held (online) in the spring of 2024. The course aims at bridging between academia and the ambient society.

Course Content:

The course provides an insight into how crises disrupt lives, livelihoods, and societies, and the ways in which they might be twisted for political purposes. Focusing on thesocio-economic inequalities imbued in crises, the course analyses how crises impact on the human rights of various social groups as related to the Sustainable Development Goals (Agenda 2030). The course sheds light on the building of social resilience through crisis mitigation and coping strategies. Through critical dialogue with crisis scholarship, the course introduces analytical tools for the examination of crisis powers, politics, precariousness, and potentialities. The course offers insights into how crisis experiences, realities, and policies are configured in local and global contexts due to factors such as gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity, and class. As disciplinary crisis approaches eschew the multi-dimensional complexities and dynamics of crisis, the course is interdisciplinary and thus includes various disciplinary understandings of crisis. In doing so, the course provides insight into different theoretical, empirical, and methodological aspects of crisis. Participants are introduced to themes such as the interdisciplinary character of crisis, crisis and climate, crisis and labour, crisis and technology, crisis and care, and crisis and conflict zones.

Course Title: GNVED1

Crisis – Critical and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, 6 credits (Department of Gender Studies)
Kris- Kritiska och tvärvetenskapliga perspektiv, 6 högskolepoäng (Genusvetenskapliga institutionen)
Second Cycle / Avancerad nivå.

Information:

For further details, please contact Lund University EduLab project leader or the course administration at the Department of Gender Studies, which hosts the course.

The Crisis Inequalities and Social Resilience (CISR) area, which is a result of collaboration between the Social Resilience Group and the Society for Critical Studies of Crisis (SCSC), will carry out a series of meetings and activities on the Lund University campus during the fall of 2023.

Schedule:

• September 12th: Sh238 (Socialhogskolan conference room on the 2nd floor)
• September 26th: Sh238 (Socialhogskolan conference room on the 2nd floor)
• October 10th: Sh238 (Socialhogskolan conference room on the 2nd floor)
• October 24th: Sh238 (Socialhogskolan conference room on the 2nd floor)
• November 7th: M102 (Hus M, Department of Gender Studies)
• November 28th: Sh238 (Socialhogskolan conference room on the 2nd floor)
• December 19th: Sh238 (Socialhogskolan conference room on the 2nd floor)

The scheduled time for each meeting is from 2:00 PM to 3:30 PM.

Symposium:

• November 16-17: InterResilience Symposium. Funded collaboration between Hamburg University, Germany and Lund University. For more information: INTERRESILIENCE : International : Universität Hamburg (uni-hamburg.de) The Symposium will be held in Biskopshuset in Lund and the School of Social Work, Lund University.

For further details, please contact coordinators Soumi Banerjee at: soumi.banerjee@soch.lu.se or Helle Rydström at: helle.rydstrom@genus.lu.se

A new Lund University Social Sciences Research Area has obtained funding from the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lund University to consolidate as a strong research area:

On Crisis Inequalities and Social Resilience (CISR):

This proposed strong research area in Crisis Inequalities and Social Resilience (CISR) arises from collaboration organically developed over time between the Initiative for Research on Social Resilience and the Society for Critical Studies of Crisis (SCSC), Faculty of Social Sciences at Lund University. The collaboration has provided important research thanks to a series of international webinars; conceptual and methodological workshops; and peer-reviewed publications. Our strong research area consolidates a range of senior and early career researchers, who through their combined expertise apply a critical lens for identifying and analyzing the entanglements between social resilience, crisis, and socio-economic inequalities. In this proposed strong research area, we respond to an ethical call for critique of local and global inequities, as enmeshed with uneven distribution of resources, unequal opportunities, and skewed rights in crisis circumstances and thereby also engage with the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). CISR connects to research conducted at the various departments under the Faculty of Social Sciences and, therefore, holds promise of long-lasting broad scholarly support, excellence in both breadth and depth, and high-level scientific and societal impact. The CISR activities are open (see separate post).

Project Coordinator:

• Helle Rydström, Professor, Department of Gender Studies, Lund University.

Co-coordinators:

• Annette Hill, Professor, Department of Communication and Media, Lund University,
• Simon Turner, Professor, Division of Social Anthropology, Department of Sociology, Lund University.

Lund University Faculty of Social Sciences CISR application involved scholars:

• Carlo Nicoli Aldini, Ph.D. Candidate, Sociology of Law.
• Soumi Banerjee, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Social Work.
• Martina A. Caretta, Senior Lecturer, Department of Cultural and Economic Geography.
• Catia Gregoratti, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science.
• Nils Gustafsson, Senior Lecturer, Department of Strategic Communication.  
• David Harnesk, Post-Doc. & Senior Lecturer, LUCSUS.
• Teres Hjärpe, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Work, Lund University.
• Mine Islar, Associate Professor, LUCSUS.
• Sara Kauko, Post-Doc. Department of Gender Studies.
• Yunhwan Kim, Senior Lecturer, Department of Psychology.
• Mikael Linnell, Post-Doc. & Senior Lecturer, Department of Sociology.
• Martin Lundqvist, Post-Doc., Department of Communication and Media.
• Tove Lundberg, Associate Professor, Department of Psychology.  
• Chris Mathieu, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology.
• Claudia Di Matteo, Ph.D. Candidate, School of Social Work.
• Andreas Mattsson, Researcher, Department of Communication and Media.
• Patric Nordbeck, Post-Doc., Department of Psychology.
• Azher Hameed Qamar, Post-Doc., School of Social Work.
• Juan Antonio Samper, Ph.D. Candidate, LUCSUS.
• Priscilla Solano, Senior Lecturer, Department of Gender Studies.  
• Marlene Wiggill, Associate Professor, Department of Strategic Communication.
• Hui Zhao, Post-Doc., Department of Strategic Communication.

May 17 at 9.30-16.15

Zoom:  https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/69020345388

IRL: Room 108, School of Social Work, Lund University

Launching Global Discourse Special Issue

Research articles: https://bristoluniversitypressdigital.com/view/journals/gd/12/3-4/gd.12.issue-3-4.xml

At this hybrid symposium, editors, and authors of the Global Discourse Special Issue: “Critical Explorations of Crisis: Politics, Precariousness, and Potentialities”, will present and discuss their contributions. Apart from the speakers in the sessions, the symposium will be opened and closed by Editor in Chief Matthew Johnson, and editors Helle Rydstrom and Mo Hamza from Lund university. No RSVP needed. Welcome!

PROGRAM:

9.30: Welcome

Helle Rydstrom, Society for Critical Studies of Crisis & Teres Hjärpe, Social Resilience Group.

9.45: Introduction to Special Issue

Global Discourse Editor-in-Chief Matthew Johnson.

10-11.30: Session 1 Chair: Priscilla Solano. Moderator: Simon Turner.

• Didier Fassin: “Preface: Crisis as Experience and Politics”.
• Sylvia Walby: “Crisis and Society: Developing the Theory of Crisis in the Context of Covid”.
• Heidi Gottfried: “Crisis and Change: The Politics of Potentialities (Reply to Walby)”.
• Ravinder Kaur: “Crisis Futures: Covid-19 and the Speculative Turning Point of History”.

LUNCH BREAK: 11.30-12.30

12.30-14.00: Session 2 Chair: Rishi Jha. Moderator: Catia Gregoratti.

• Henrik Vigh: “Slow Crisis: Critical Continuities in Bissau and Beyond”.
• Helle Rydstrom: “The ‘Hardship’ of Ordinary Crises: Gendered Precariousness and Horizonsof Coping in Vietnam’s Industrial Zones”.
• Jonathan D. London: “Social Reproduction meets the World Market (Reply to Rydstrom)”.
• Anne-Meike Fechter: “Humanitarianism, Mobility and Kinship (Reply to Zhukova)”.

COFFEE/TEA BREAK: 14.00-14.30

14.30-16.00: Session 3 Chair: Annette Hill. Moderator: Azher Hameed Qamar.

• Steffen Jensen & Nanna Schneidermann: “Surviving in Overcome Heights: Living in and Alongside Crisis in Cape Town”.
• Jesper Bjarnesen: “The Politics of Urban Displacement and Emplacement in Overcome Heights (Reply to Jensen and Schneidermann)”.
• Jeff Hearn: “The Place and Potential of Crisis/Crises in Critical Studies on Men and Masculinities”.

16.00-16.15: Closing of Symposium

Mo Hamza, Society for Critical Studies of Crisis.

16.15-16.45: Meeting

Presenters meet with Global Discourse Editor-in-Chief Matthew Johnson.

16.45-18: On-Campus Gathering

Room 108, School of Social Work, Lund University.

Participants

• Bjarnesen, Jesper, Senior Researcher, The Nordic Africa Institute, Uppsala University, Sweden.
• Fassin, Didier, James D. Wolfensohn Professor, Institute of Advanced Studies, Princeton University, USA.
• Fechter, Anne-Meike, Professor, School of Global Studies, University of Sussex, UK.
• Gottfried, Heidi, Professor, Department of Sociology, Wayne State University, USA.
• Gregoratti, Catia, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Lund University, Denmark.
• Hamza, Mo, Professor, Division of Risk Management and Societal Safety, Lund University, Sweden.
• Hearn, Jeff, Senior Professor, Department of Human Geography, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, Örebro University, Sweden.
• Hill, Annette, Professor, Department of Media and Communication, Lund University, Sweden.
• Hjärpe, Teres, Senior Lecturer, School of Social Work, Lund University, Sweden.
• Jensen, Steffen, Professor, Department of Politics and Society, The Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, University of Aalborg, Denmark.
• Jha, Rishi, Researcher, School of Social Work, Lund University, Sweden.
• Johnson, Matthew, Professor, Department of Social Sciences, Northumbria University, Newcastle, UK, Editor-in-Chief, Global Discourse.
• Kaur, Ravinder, Professor Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
• London, Jonathan D. Associate Professor, Global Political Economy, Leiden University, The Netherlands.
• Qamar, Azher Hameed, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, School of Social Work, Lund University, Sweden.
• Rydstrom, Helle, Professor, Department of Gender Studies and Visiting Professor Division of Social Anthropology, Lund University, Sweden.
• Schneidermann, Nanna, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, Moesgaard, Aarhus University, Denmark.
• Solano, Priscilla, Senior Lecturer, Department of Gender Studies, Lund University, Sweden.
• Turner, Simon, Professor, Division of Social Anthropology, Lund University, Sweden.
• Vigh, Henrik, Professor, Center for Global Criminology, Institute for Anthropology, University of Copenhagen, Denmark.
• Walby, Sylvia, Professor, Department of Law and Criminology, School of Law and Social Sciences, Royal Holloway, University of London, UK.