Unpacking joint sensemaking in transboundary crisis management

Transboundary crises are becoming increasingly frequent and complex, challenging traditional disaster risk management systems that were primarily designed for bounded and localized negative events. Transboundary crises cut across geographical, sectoral, and jurisdictional boundaries, generating high levels of uncertainty, fragmented information, and coordination challenges among a wide array of actors operating at multiple governance levels. In such settings, the ability to establish and sustain joint sensemaking - the process through which actors develop a shared understanding of evolving situations - becomes a fundamental prerequisite for effective crisis management. This paper examines how joint sensemaking can be fostered in the context of transboundary crises, focusing on prevention and preparedness activities within multilevel disaster risk governance. Bringing together research on crises and organizational sensemaking, the paper clarifies how communication, interaction, situational awareness, and coordination challenges shape sensemaking processes before and during crises. In addition, it demonstrates that joint sensemaking is both essential and difficult to achieve in transboundary settings, where actors hold diverse frames of reference, operate under asymmetric information conditions, and face blurred lines of responsibility. The paper identifies key challenges for shaping joint sensemaking and argues that efforts to strengthen it must begin in the pre-crisis phase. Suggestions include developing multilevel information, sharing platforms, establishing boundary-spanning roles, enabling adaptive governance arrangements, and investing in strategic communication to counter misinformation and disinformation. These measures enhance the ability of actors to create a coherent picture of crisis development, detect weak signals, and coordinate responses effectively across borders. By unpacking the dynamics of joint sensemaking in transboundary crises, the paper contributes to a deeper understanding of how crisis management systems can be organized to better anticipate, prepare for, and respond to complex and interconnected disruptions.

Keywords: Complexity, Disaster risk management, Joint sensemaking, Transboundary crises, Uncertainty.