Polycrisis is the word being used to diagnose some of the most important global concerns of our times. The Financial Times designated 2022 “the year of the polycrisis,” and defined polycrisis as the “collective term for interlocking and simultaneous crises of an environmental, geopolitical and economic nature.” While the diagnosis is certainly apt, much of the current analysis of the solution space focuses too narrowly on the consequences of the polycrisis while overlooking the systemic reasons that fuel it in the first place. There is a need for critical interventions and expanded views.

Black feminism has developed tools such as intersectionality which illuminate our world and offer new ways of co-existence. Intersectionality involves thinking about interlocking domains of power - and the way out of polycrisis requires such a multi-perspectival tool that travels in the complexity of relational patterns and systems. In this project, we aim to extend the kaleidoscopic toolbox of Black feminism by spelling out a heuristics for a novel solution space to the polycrisis.

By drawing on intersectional models, we bring a novel “polycritical” and “epistemically polyamorous” approach to the polycrisis. We will work along three dimensions: (1) develop intersectional theory and praxis including Global South perspectives, (2) formulate critical arguments about the polycrisis and its relationship to Europatriarchal systems of domination, and (3) offer concrete, imaginative visions for a better future based on applications of intersectional methodology to the polycrisis.

Fellowship Call is now closed.