Civil Society Responses to Disaster: Volunteering, Recovery, and Community Resilience

This session examines how civil society actors contribute to disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and long-term community resilience. Research has repeatedly shown that disasters often generate various forms of cooperation, mutual aid, and civic engagement, while also revealing tensions, inequalities, and challenges within communities.

The session aims to deepen our understanding of volunteer activities, mutual aid, community-led initiatives, nonprofit organizations, grassroots responses, and citizen participation in disaster contexts across diverse cultural and national settings. Particular attention will be given to how grassroots initiatives and support activities that emerge immediately after disasters are organized, sustained, and institutionalized over time, and how these processes vary across societies.

We also seek to explore how experiences of disaster response and recovery contribute to rebuilding communities, strengthening social ties, and fostering resilience under different cultural, political, and institutional conditions. Comparative, theoretical, and empirical contributions are all welcome.

In addition, the session aims to stimulate discussion on the practical contributions sociology can make during and after disasters. By examining similarities and differences across societies, we hope to explore how civil society actors can collaborate across boundaries and contribute to disaster response, recovery, and resilience-building in an increasingly interconnected world.