Critical Discursive Responses to Polycrisis

In this chapter, we argue that a critical discursive approach to the intersecting global challenges facing humanity can provide a ‘programme of research and action’ (Lawrence et al., Global Sustainability 7:1–14, 2024) that enables us to address the interacting crises we are experiencing in European society—and the world—today. Drawing on emerging interdisciplinary research, we set out our approach to polycrisis and explain why we have chosen this term over crisis or permacrisis for our edited collection. We then highlight how the need for social action towards polysolutions (Henig and Knight, Anthropology Today 39:3–6, 2023) renders polycrisis an urgent, worthy and under-theorised object for CDA research. Finally, we introduce the chapters in the collection and tease out the questions raised and answered by their contributions.