Society for Critical Studies of Crisis (SCSC)

This webinar is part of a series of webinars organised by the SCSC with scholars from around the world. The themes of the webinars will be centered around the topic of the polarities of crisis in the global world, where crisis is simultaneously understood as an area of contestation and control. The prospective themes include “health and crisis”, “climate and crisis”, “corruption and crisis”, “universities and crisis”, gender and crisis”, and others.

In this webinar on 15 June 2021, 10-12 (CET), we explore the crisis in disasters and conflicts.

How do we understand crisis at the intersection of disasters and conflicts? Policy models for responding to disasters related to natural hazards have changed considerably in recent decades: away from reacting to disasters and towards more proactive risk reduction; and away from state-centred top-down approaches and towards involving non-state actors and communities. However, research and policy only recently started paying attention to how this works in conflict-affected settings, where more than 30% of disasters unfold. Disasters are more likely to occur in such settings because conflict intensifies vulnerability and erodes response capacities. The exacerbating effects work both ways, as disasters increase vulnerabilities and intensify the effects of conflict. However, existing disaster policy, such as the Sendai Framework for Action, does not take this into account. 

Most existing research on the disaster-conflict nexus either treats conflict as a single decontextualized reality or contends that context matters so much that insights cannot be generalised. Both tendencies are of little help to practitioners and policy-makers. It is clear that best practices are not consistently applied in humanitarian action. There are many reasons for this, including political interests and inertia. But it is also related to the fact the best practices are usually too general and decontextualised.

To bridge these gaps, the ‘When Disaster Meets Conflict’ research programme, led by Dorothea Hilhorst, takes a scenario-based approach. It studies humanitarian aid and disaster governance in three conflict-affected settings: high-intensity, low-intensity and post-conflict settings. In this way, the programme generates more applicable insights and lessons for aid actors.

Chair: Ekatherina Zhukova, Researcher, Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden

Speaker: Dorothea Hilhorst, Professor, International Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, Netherlands.

Discussant: Anne-Meike Fechter, Reader in Anthropology, University of Sussex, UK.

To attend, please join the zoom event at the date and time of the webinar:

https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/69290598224?pwd=SlM0elNicTFxNlcrM1FUMXNYNFl6QT09

Meeting ID: 692 9059 8224

Password: 999442

This webinar is part of a series of webinars organised by the SCSC with scholars from around the world. The themes of the webinars will be centered around the topic of the polarities of crisis in the global world, where crisis is simultaneously understood as an area of contestation and control. The prospective themes include “health and crisis”, “climate and crisis”, “corruption and crisis”, “universities and crisis”, gender and crisis”, and others.

The webinar will be held on 17 May 2021, 14-16 (CET).

Chaired by Professor Roger Zetter, Emeritus Professor of Refugee Studies, University of Oxford

Discussant Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies and Co-Director, UCL-Migration Research Unit, University College London,

Refugee displacement, almost without exception, is described as a ‘crisis’ in popular imagination and in policy discourse. Refugee crisis are an archetype of the way crises are conceived and institutionalised. 

In this lecture Prof. Roger Zetter will ask how and why refugee displacement has become normalised as a ‘crisis’ phenomenon and question whether there are alternatives to this crisis conception. In this way he will explore the polarities which different discourses of refugee crises expose – the complex and often paradoxical conditions of temporality, spatiality, scale, and dehistoricisation which they highlight. 

The 45 minutes lecture will be followed by a short discussant’s response by Professor Elena Fiddian-Qasmiyeh, Professor of Migration and Refugee Studies and Co-Director, UCL-Migration Research Unit, University College London, and then opened up to participants’ questions and contributions.

To attend, please join the zoom event at the date and time of the webinar:

https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/61341158091?pwd=STlSb0dlc3ZPUVY2bDZrUDhDL1NPZz09

Meeting ID: 613 4115 8091

Password: 475443

This webinar is part of a series of webinars organised by the SCSC with scholars from around the world. The themes of the webinars will be centered around the topic of the polarities of crisis in the global world, where crisis is simultaneously understood as an area of contestation and control. The prospective themes include “health and crisis”, “climate and crisis”, “corruption and crisis”, “universities and crisis”, gender and crisis”, and others.

This webinar will be held on 3 May 2021, 14-16 (CET).

To attend, please join the zoom event at the date and time of the webinar:

https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/66645985697?pwd=R2VkdmNMbktRNmNaZEdrM2ExTjBZUT09

Meeting ID: 666 4598 5697
Password: 981803

This webinar is part of a series of webinars organised by the SCSC with scholars from around the world. The themes of the webinars will be centered around the topic of the polarities of crisis in the global world, where crisis is simultaneously understood as an area of contestation and control. The prospective themes include “health and crisis”, “climate and crisis”, “corruption and crisis”, “universities and crisis”, gender and crisis”, and others.

In this webinar on 15 April 2021, 10-12 (CET), we explore the political economy of crisis.

The global political economy gets its shape from power struggles and contingent modes of production and exploitation, and the ongoing crises break these structuring dynamics open to influence and redirection. This is what Erik Andersson argues in his book Reconstructing the Global Political Economy – An Analytical Guide published in 2020 by Bristol University Press. The last chapter of the book is called “Do Not Waste a Crisis” and based on this conception of what typically happens in (and after) an economic crisis, his talk will move from economic institutions over globalized production and finance to everyday life. The theme of this exposé will be as much about forms of power and of love, as about economics and politics.

Chair: Ekatherina Zhukova, Researcher, Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden.

Speaker: Erik Andersson, Associate Professor, School of Global Studies, University of Gothenburg, Sweden.

Discussant: Catia Gregoratti, Senior Lecturer, Department of Political Science, Lund University, Sweden.

To attend, please join the zoom event at the date and time of the webinar:

https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/63895774000?pwd=M1lmMzRTVG5FMnJYbEdZV0V4Nk1KUT09

Meeting ID: 638 9577 4000
Password: 061128

This webinar is part of a series of webinars organised by the SCSC with scholars from around the world. The themes of the webinars will be centered around the topic of the polarities of crisis in the global world, where crisis is simultaneously understood as an area of contestation and control. The prospective themes include “health and crisis”, “climate and crisis”, “corruption and crisis”, “universities and crisis”, gender and crisis”, and others.

In this webinar on 1 April 2021, 14-16 (CET), we unfold the ways in which crises, masculinities, and violences are intertwined by drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted in India, South Africa, and Vietnam. Examining how violent manifestations of masculinity are diversified due to gender, age, sexuality, ethnicity, caste, and class both in their configurations as well as ramifications allows for analyses of crises powers and dynamics in specific contexts. The webinar highlights how masculinized violent crises take shape amongst various groups by interlocking with socio-economic crisis antecedents and, moreover, by entangling with already existing crises that might not only be fueled but even augmented. Manifestations of masculinity vis-à-vis others by the means of violence and harm indicate rupture and ruination. Studying the consequences of masculinized violent crises amongst those who enact the violence and those upon whom the abuse is inflicted also means to identify the forms, intensities, and phases of a crisis to pinpoint how people, communities, collectives, and societies navigate and combat crises defined by masculinized violence. In doing so, the webinar also considers the ways in which painful crises situations might be transmuted into steppingstones of potentialities towards empowerment and emancipation. 

Order of Presentations: 

Steffen Jensen, Professor, Department of Politics and Society, Aalborg University, Denmark.

Helle Rydstrom, Professor, Department of Gender Studies, Lund University, Sweden.

Atreyee Sen, Associate Professor, Department for Anthropology, University of Copenhagen.

Chair:

Helle Rydstrom, Lund University.

To attend, please join the zoom event at the date and time of the webinar:

https://lu-se.zoom.us/j/67595306705?pwd=YVJQZjM0dzg0NTU1L2V0Y0NscVlVdz09

Meeting ID: 675 9530 6705
Password: 873241