In her article, PhD researcher Beatrice Hati investigates how grassroots organizations form dynamic, diverse and multilevel networks during crises to enable emergency response.
Published in the latest special issue of Environment and Urbanization, Hati explores how grassroots organizations (GROs) dynamically structure and adapt their networks during disasters.
Drawing from Slum Dwellers International SDI-affiliated GROs from Kenya, Sierra Leone and India, she shows that GROs form polymorphic networks – dynamic, diverse and multilevel, during crises. These networks enable immediate emergency response through older networks, but, crucially, new linkages, transformative learning and a protagonist role of the local governments is needed to open avenues for long-term resilience.
Read the article online
'Polymorphic grassroots networks and implications for disaster resilience in popular settlements in Sierra Leone, India and Kenya', Environment and Urbanization (Vol 37 No. 1, April 2025.
Special issue of Environment and Urbanization
The special issue, edited by Diana Mitlin (IIED and University of Manchester) and Ezana Haddis Weldeghebrael (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Research Commissioning Centre), explores the processes through which coalitions negotiate a common understanding of the policies, programmes and practices of a shared prosperous urban future.
The nine papers:
- examine aspects including the way reform coalitions advance more equitable internal relations, reducing hierarchies between urban activists and professionals;
- discuss the contribution of grassroots reform coalitions and the networking practices of non-traditional actors;
- explore how academics can act as catalysts or intermediaries in coalitions.
A range of urban contexts including Cape Town, Free Town, Nairobi, Dakar, Durban, Mumbai, Harare and Lagos, and those analyzing coalitions across Asian and African cities, allow authors to step beyond their primary academic and professional expertise to write about something in which they are deeply involved both as knowledge providers and as activists concerned with the future of their cities.
- PhD student
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