Original scientific paper
https://doi.org/10.5673/sip.59.2.2a
How Environmentalists Deal with (Yet Another) Global Crisis: Resilience, Vulnerability, and Intersecting Crises
Jelena Puđak
; Institute of Social Sciences Ivo Pilar, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
The Covid-19 pandemic has had multiple effects on social systems as yet another
crisis, alongside climate change and biodiversity loss, that stems from the complex interaction
between human and natural systems. In this regard, building resilience to ongoing and future
crises has become a common reference point in both public and scholarly discourse. In the
context of building resilience, the civil sector has an important social role to play in promoting
the public interest and strengthening the role of citizens in democratic societies, thus enabling
them to participate in society’s development. The environmental movement, as one of the
most successful social movements, combines issues of environmental protection with a concept
of social justice and economic development, and thus with building the resilience of society as
a whole. The research questions were: how has the Covid-19 pandemic affected environmental
NGOs, and what strategies have they applied to cope with and adapt to the new situation?
How do environmental activists describe the concepts of vulnerability and resilience within the
NGO sector? What are their expectations of future trends in the field to which their activism
refers? The results of this research point to the conclusion that resilience is defined in terms
of an organization’s adaptability, flexibility, inner social cohesion, and capacity to self-organize
with an emphasis on networking. Intersecting crises that stem from the complex relationship
between human and natural systems pose a challenge of finding an efficient frame for the
problem within the movement and of re-establishing a corrective role in society.
Keywords
intersecting crisis; resilience; vulnerability; environmental NGOs; pandemic
Hrčak ID:
265436
URI
Publication date:
12.11.2021.
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