Emergent citizen groups are groups that arise under disaster conditions to handle tasks that existing organizations are not already handling [@quarantelli1984; @stallingsquarantelli1985].
The term comes from disaster sociology, especially E. L. Quarantelli’s work and the article by Robert A. Stallings and E. L. Quarantelli [@quarantelli1984; @stallingsquarantelli1985]. It matters because it rejects the assumption that order in a disaster comes only from preexisting command structures.
Emergent citizen groups show that disaster response often involves new forms of coordination, not just the activation of old ones. People form new relations around search and rescue, supply distribution, transport, communication, and care because local need changes faster than formal institutions can absorb it [@quarantelli1984].
Related terms
- Mutual aid - the broader horizontal relation many emergent groups practice
- Direct action - meeting needs without institutional permission
- Spontaneous Volunteers - unaffiliated volunteers who often work alongside emergent groups
- Elite panic - the pattern of official suspicion that often confronts emergent capacity