PhD in Community Self Organisation for Resilience in Coventry United Kingdom | Coventry University

This study examines the intricate and often debated methods communities use to self-organize in managing their essential food and water supplies. Whether reviving overlooked resources and skills during economic hardship, leveraging new technologies for emerging opportunities, or reconstructing livelihoods post-disasters or conflicts, communities employ diverse approaches in their journey toward resilience.

We view community resilience as an ongoing cycle of individual and collaborative efforts—constantly evolving, multifaceted, and adaptable rather than fixed or uniform. Our research initiative also aims to deepen critical perspectives on community resilience. Specifically, we explore resilience's conceptual origins, analyze its varied applications across different discourses, disciplines, and policy frameworks, and examine the broader political-economic systems that either support or hinder community resilience. Our definition of communities is expansive, encompassing local populations, cultural groups, and interest-based collectives, acknowledging their inherent diversity, complexity, and internal contradictions. Communities can simultaneously embody spaces of control and defiance, marginalization and belonging, fragmentation and unity, as well as fragility and strength.