Short Abstract:

The panel explores how community-led responses in the Global South resist and create possibilities for alternative modes of social transformation while developing their own approaches towards crisis response, solidarity and collective care beyond conventional development and humanitarian frameworks.

Long Abstract:

The panel explores how community-led responses to the overlapping crises of the Global South resist and create possibilities for alternative modes of social transformation beyond conventional development and humanitarian frameworks. Drawing on the experience of refugee-led organizations and local initiatives as a response to compound crises in Lebanon and beyond, the panel examines how marginalized communities navigate and resist traditional humanitarian governance while developing their own approaches towards crisis response and collective care.

Key questions the panel seeks to address:

1- How do responses by refugee and local communities to overlapping crises such as, economic collapse, displacement, political instability, and war, challenge dominant development and humanitarian paradigms?

2- What could development theory and practice learn from emergent, community-led humanitarian responses born within contexts of chronic uncertainty?

3- How do grassroots crisis response initiatives envision a different development model in which solidarity, dignity, and collective care are core?

4- What are the methodological and epistemological challenges to researching community-led responses to crisis, and how do these contribute to new approaches to development research?

While theoretical presentations are welcome, the panel is also intended as a space for ground-level mobilization experiences shared through stories, letters, pictures, and other creative formats. The aim is to create a warm, intimate space that breaks from traditional academic conference dynamics and better reflects the topic of community-led responses and collective care.

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