Mobilising care in the polycrisis: framing eco-social activism in Hungary, Czechia, and Poland

In this article we explore how eco-social movements in Hungary, Czechia, and Poland mobilise care as a political and strategic framework in response to the interconnected crises of climate collapse, democratic erosion, and social inequality. In contrast to single-issue activism, we examine how care enables activists to build cross-movement coalitions, sustain engagement, and challenge depoliticised or technocratic approaches to change. Drawing on Tronto’s ethics of care, feminist and ecofeminist theory, and framing theory, we analyse how care functions as a political grammar that connects values, emotions, and practices across diverse struggles. Based on a multi-method collaborative approach, we show how activists adapt the language of care to local post-socialist realities. We argue that care offers an inclusive, relational vocabulary capable of bridging ideological divides, while also acknowledging its gendered limits and vulnerability to co-optation in neoliberal contexts.