polycrisis

English

Etymology

poly- +‎ crisis. Attested at least since the 2010s.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /ˈpɒliˌkraɪsɪs/

• Audio (Southern England)

  (file)

Noun

polycrisis (plural polycrises)

1. (economics, neologism) A series of crises occurring at the same time.
   • 2011, Y. Villacampa Esteve, C. A. Brebbia, Andrea Alberto Mammoli, Energy and Sustainability III, WIT Press, →ISBN, page 16:

     South Africa finds itself in a polycrisis in terms of dealing with economic development, to alleviate poverty, within water and energy constraints (see fig. 2).

   • 2012, Mark Swilling, Eve Annecke, Just Transitions: Explorations of Sustainability in an Unfair World, United Nations Univ:

     The first implies an ethics of sufficiency and cooperation which undercut the capitalist values of individualism and crass materialism that are of little use when it comes to considering alternatives to the polycrises we now face.

   • 2013 March 1, Bruce Frayne, Caroline Moser, Gina Ziervogel, Climate Change, Assets and Food Security in Southern African Cities, Routledge, →ISBN:

     If cities are to have a sustainable future, are to respond to the poly-crises and are to provide the necessary opportunities for future populations, the governance roles in responding and adapting to all aspects demand a very different view of governance and leadership within the city.

   • 2016 February 17, Peter Westoby, Theorising the Practice of Community Development: A South African Perspective, Routledge, →ISBN:

     It should also be said that the economic sphere is increasingly understood to be intricately connected to the ecological – as two sides of the same coin – and in many ways community development, deeply influenced by the broader 'development literature', has been reconstructed by the ecological polycrises upon us […].

   • 2021 August 9, Linda Peake, Elsa Koleth, Gokboru Sarp Tanyildiz, Rajyashree N. Reddy, darren patrick/dp, A Feminist Urban Theory for Our Time: Rethinking Social Reproduction and the Urban, John Wiley & Sons, →ISBN, page 187:

     In Palestine, polycrises constitute the everyday rhythm of life; cityscapes are saturated with colonial social relations across all scales; and othering and socio-spatial disconnects have become the channels through which economic exploitation, the furthering of dependencies, and the Israeli colonial project are enabled.

   • 2022 December 30, Pamela Duncan, Carmen Aguilar García, Michael Goodier, “Inflation, waiting lists, strikes, rail chaos, climate emergency: the 2022 polycrisis”, in The Guardian‎^[1]:

     But the exchange feeds into an ever-more-common discourse: that the UK is facing “polycrisis” in almost every facet of life in Britain. From courts to the cost of living, transport to healthcare, environment to the asylum system – everywhere appears to be affected.

Related terms

• critical
• multicrisis (adj)
• permacrisis

Translations

multiple crises at the same time

• French: polycrise (fr) f
• German: Polykrise f

See also

• state of emergency

Further reading

Ville Lähde, 2023, "The Polycrisis", Aeon, 17 Aug. [2]