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This paper examines health system and community resilience in Fiji during COVID-19. Through a series of talanoa sessions in Fiji, and drawing on indigenous frameworks and CAS theory, the study shows how cultural values and relational networks strengthen adaptation and transformation during crises.

Paper long abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic exposed vulnerabilities in health systems worldwide, particularly in Global South countries including Fiji, where pre-existing systemic challenges were exacerbated. This research examines adaptive practices within Fiji’s health sector, exploring pathways for resilience and transformation.

This paper is based on a series of talanoa (discussion) sessions conducted with key groups in Fiji. First, we explored the experiences of high-level stakeholders in the health sector, including government representatives, medical and nursing associations, and local health and community leaders. Follow up case studies then focused on experienced nurses who served during, the pandemic; and on the experiences of three iTaukei (indigenous) communities. These unstructured conversations allowed exploration of the lived experiences of those on the frontlines, highlighting how local leadership, cultural values, and relational networks sustained the system under extreme pressure.

Using a framework that integrates complex adaptive systems (CAS) theory with the Fiji Vanua and Tali Magimagi research frameworks, the study conceptualises resilience as a dynamic, cyclical process. Using the metaphor of magimagi (woven coconut fibres), tangible health system elements, such as resources and infrastructure, are woven together with intangible strengths, including trust, compassion, and cultural values. This holistic framework emphasises the interdependence of components often overlooked in conventional health system models, advocating for decolonised, context-sensitive approaches to health and development.

In a world facing polycrises, this research highlights how resilience lies not only in recovering from shocks but also through contextually specific absorption, adaptation, and transformation, centred around Indigenous knowledge and practices.

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Nigeria's economic crisis reveals the flaws of capitalist crisis management in fragile economies. Communitalism, a community-centred model focusing on solidarity and shared resources, offers practical solutions. This paper explores Communitalism's potential for economic resilience.

Paper long abstract

Nigeria’s economic crisis, triggered by fuel subsidy removal and the naira’s floating under President Tinubu in 2023, exposes the shortcomings of capitalist crisis management in fragile economies. These policies have led to rising fuel prices, heightened inflation, exchange rate volatility, and widespread public dissatisfaction, revealing capitalism’s inherent tendency to prioritize profit over the welfare of vulnerable populations. This paper examines the ripple effects of these reforms and explores Communitalism—a community-centered model emphasizing solidarity and shared resources—as a viable alternative. Communitalism offers practical strategies to address economic challenges by fostering grassroots collaboration and resilience, highlighting its potential to deliver equitable, sustainable solutions where market-driven approaches fall short. Amidst these systemic challenges, Communitalism has provided practical, community-focused strategies for survival and advancement. Communitalism is based on the principles of solidarity, communal resilience, and equitable resource sharing, promoting grassroots collaboration and mutual aid. This study presents instances in which Nigerians have utilised cooperative networks, traditional practices, and communal initiatives to address the negative impacts of economic reforms. These approaches have effectively met immediate needs, including food security, transportation, and financial support, while strengthening the social fabric. This paper argues that while the government's initiatives, such as enhanced revenue sharing, economic diversification, and anti-corruption measures, present opportunities for systemic reform, they must be supplemented by grassroots solutions and socio-economic models such as Communitalism. This approach contributes to a broader discourse on reimagining development pathways prioritising human and communal flourishing rather than profit and exploitation.

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This paper analyses Korea’s energy system over the last decade using Veblen-Polanyi’s insights addressing deeper issues of ‘structuration’ in capitalist energy system, arguing a basic income can act as a trigger for self-organisation, but only valid when connected to Veblen-Polanyi’s radical-theory.

Paper long abstract

In contemporary-capitalism, deepening multiple socioeconomic inequalities-polycrises, it is inevitable to make major ‘adaptations’ (‘self-organising changes’). The fundamental-challenge must be institutional: the established-institutions are improper, so a greater-period-of-experimentation like ‘basic-income’ is necessary. This is why we should look at the basics of institutional-theory, particularly of Post-Keyensian (as Marx-and-Keynes) traditions, outside the ruling neoliberal-consensus. Nevertheless, the truly-deeper concern putting this literature vulnerable in challenging it is the weak-connection to radical-theory, particularly of Veblen-Polanyi, on the issue: in this crisis, whether can a basic-income truly act-as-a-trigger to self-organise a new-system of energy-and-community-resilience?, leading to sub-questions: (1) how the capitalist-system-of-energy gets to organisation-structuration in real-world (objectivity); (2) what its ‘truly-deeper-originator’ of crisis is; (3) how (whether) a basic-income (truly) act-as-a-trigger for self-organisation (in philosophical-value ‘justice’ and history); (4) if untruly, what the normative-solutions are, addressing the current political-landscapes of possibilities between reformism-versus-radicalism. This paper, defining ‘self-organisation’ as an ‘institutional-process-of-change-with-struggles to reorganise-reconstitute-restructurate an order-out-of-disorder,’ aims to critically-reflect on the questions with the institutional-matrix of self-organisation structurated by market vs. non-market; pro-capital vs. anti-capital, through an critical application of the deeper-understanding of radical-theory of Veblen-Polanyi into an empirical case-study (with quantitative-data-analysis) on Korea’s energy-system during the last-decade. By doing so, this paper argues: beyond the superficial-issues of market-versus-State, and Keynesianism-versus-neoliberalism, there are deeper-issues ‘structuration’ within capitalist-systems-of-energy in Korea, which most institutional-theories in Post-Keynesian traditions have well-addressed, arguing that a basic-income can act-as-a-trigger to self-organise. However, these are in turn only-valid when truly-connected to radical-theory, particularly of Veblen-Polanyi, connecting ‘basic-income’ with long-term vision, beyond such capitalistic-system.

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Paper short abstract

Women, particularly in subsistence households, face heightened risks from climate disasters like floods and droughts. Their recovery is hindered by limited resources and social constraints. This study explores how women’s leadership in crisis response strengthens community resilience and adaptation.

Paper long abstract

Women in the Global South, particularly those leading subsistence-level households, face heightened risks from extreme weather events like floods and droughts. Their ability to recover is limited due to economic dependence, social constraints, and lack of access to resources. Climate disasters often displace entire communities, increasing the burden on women, who are responsible for household survival, childcare, and securing livelihoods. This study examines how women contribute to community resilience and adaptation in climate crises, an area with minimal prior research.

Pakistan and India are highly climate-vulnerable, with severe weather events displacing millions. The 2022 Pakistan floods, particularly in Sindh, caused massive losses and displacement, disproportionately affecting women. Many lost access to land, faced food insecurity, and took on low-paying jobs to sustain families. Gendered power dynamics further limit women’s access to financial assistance, deepening their vulnerability.

Despite these challenges, research suggests that women’s involvement in household decision-making strengthens resilience. However, there is little exploration of how displaced women can act as community mobilisers when supported through microfinance and social programs. Some organisations provide financial aid, yet women struggle to access resources due to systemic and cultural barriers.

This study explores how women’s leadership in crisis response supports information sharing, resource mobilisation, and collective recovery. Unlike formal institutions, women are trusted community figures, leveraging social ties to aid vulnerable households. Understanding their role in climate adaptation is key to developing sustainable resilience strategies in South Asia.

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This paper explores the potential of Indigenous models, such as Soulidarity Economy (Al-Mawakhat)—a community-driven framework rooted in collective responsibility and mutual support through Benevolent Loans (Qard Hasan)—to navigate this poly-crisis.

Paper long abstract

Pakistan’s socio-economic development is increasingly hindered by a poly-crisis—a complex convergence of political instability, economic stagnation, social inequality, and climate vulnerabilities. Frequent government changes, policy inconsistencies, and systemic governance failures have created an environment of uncertainty that stalls investment, disrupts development initiatives, and perpetuates poverty. Though attempted, international aid and macroeconomic policies have been insufficient to address these interconnected challenges on a local and national level due to the fragile political landscape, religious sensitivities, and a staggering illiteracy rate being the leading causes.

Building on existing socio-religious and cultural practices, especially in Pakistani villages, the Al-Mawakhat movement (Soulidarity Economy) emphasizes local self-reliance, shared resources, and grassroots mobilisation to address pressing economic and social needs. This model seeks to mitigate the compounded effects of political instability, economic deprivation, and environmental challenges by leveraging social capital, fostering community trust, and promoting collaborative solutions.

The research highlights case studies of community-led initiatives that have successfully tackled issues like unemployment through micro-entrepreneurship, education gaps, healthcare shortages, and disaster resilience, demonstrating the potential for Indigenous frameworks to provide sustainable alternatives to centralised governance failures. By embedding resilience and adaptability into local contexts, Soulidarity Economy offers a pathway for addressing the poly-crisis in Pakistan. The study concludes that institutionalising Indigenous models, like Al-Mawakhat and Qard Hasan, can empower communities to foster self-reliance and create localised solutions to complex, overlapping crises in politically volatile environments.

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This study advances theoretical and practical insights on how formal state-led and social networks can combine to build resilience to the climate crisis among businesses in African contexts.

Paper long abstract

The dominant narrative in research and policy domains is the government’s role in providing support that helps the stability of small businesses, who, although regarded as the strength of the economy, are also the most vulnerable to risks from climate change impacts. These notions have been reinforced by governments’ active role in global conversations about climate change, with expectations that they develop appropriate local responses that help businesses. But do government leadership and policy responses help small businesses to build resilience, especially in Africa’s fragile economies? I seek answers to this question by assessing how small businesses build resilience to the climate crisis, and which actors are most effective in driving this, using Lagos, Nigeria’s economic hub, as a case study. I draw evidence from a mixed methods research approach combining semi-structured interviews of key actors with surveys administered to 200 business owners in Lagos. Drawing on the evidence obtained, I argue that while business owners are aware of the implications of climate change for their businesses and are positively disposed to act, they draw more on support from social networks. Thus, contrary to the much-vaunted leadership role of governments in driving adaptation and mitigation strategies for different sectors, social and business networks constitute the most important actors for small businesses, necessitating a bigger role for them in global climate change conversations. My analysis advances theoretical and practical insights on how formal state-led and social networks can combine to build resilience to the climate crisis among businesses in fragile contexts.

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A review of 37 studies shows that polycrisis impacts are uneven; public spending is unequal; recovery efforts are inequitable; resulting in socio-spatial disparities; and cross-border coordination remains weak. It calls for transscalar, longitudinal research using standardized indicators.

Paper long abstract

While not a novel idea, the term “polycrisis” gained prominence recently, particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. Polycrisis refers to interconnected crises that reinforce each other and are more challenging than isolated crises. This review synthesizes literature to inform future research, applied decision-making, and policy responses across four main themes: public spending, recovery efforts, socio-spatial patterns, and inter-regional relations. It provides a summary of what has been researched, how it was conducted, the gaps that remain, and introduces indicators to address polycrisis challenges. Following PRISMA guidelines, the initial search of three academic databases identified 197 journal articles, of which the final review retrieved 37 full-texts that met the inclusion criteria after screening.

Results show that the effects of polycrisis are built into the system and vary by location, with rural and informal areas experiencing slower or unfair recovery, while diversified economies recover faster. Public spending responses are unequal and weakly tracked, making it difficult to assess whether resources reach the most vulnerable areas. Therefore, crisis response exacerbates socio-spatial inequality. Local and regional institutions struggle to adapt quickly to changing circumstances and lack collaborative abilities to engage in shared tasks. Furthermore, practical cross-border mechanisms remain weak and under-researched.

The review identifies gaps where future research is urgent, including mixed approaches on multi-layered crisis interactions and transcalar spillovers, mapping spatial inequality and community participation in informal settlements, and using longitudinal, spatially disaggregated datasets. To address these gaps, the review proposes a preliminary set of indicators to research multiscalar polycrisis management.