Making the case for self-organisation: understanding how communities make sense of sustainability and climate change through collective action

Understanding how community groups take on the challenge of climate change is key to understanding the capacity of society as a whole to adapt in the face of climate change in ways that acknowledge a broader need for a sustainable societal transition. In order to show this it is important to identify what distinguishes self-organised responses to the climate change challenge from other responses. Through critically evaluating the existing literature on self-organisation and on locally based responses to climate change, the paper clarifies what we mean by self-organised response and then demonstrates how the concept would enhance the scope of research about local-level responses to enhance societal sustainability. Furthermore, the article presents an agenda for identifying selforganised responses to climate change and distinguishing self-organised responses from other forms of ‘community-led’ response.