Civic Resilience and the COVID-19 Crisis (Part 1 of 2) (original) (raw)
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Building Back Better: Fostering Community Resilient Dynamics beyond COVID-19
Social Sciences, 2022
In light of the COVID-19 crisis and its deep impacts worldwide, questions arise of how to be prepared against and cope with pandemics in particular and disruptions in general. The coronavirus not only posed a physical health threat but caused detrimental effects on people's social lives, adding concerns for individual and collective wellbeing. Herein, within a qualitative explorative case study from Merano (Northern Italy) combining two strands of literature, namely post-disaster recovery and community resilience, 14 semi-structured interviews were conducted with key informants. The interviews served as methodological tool to explore six dimensions (cultural, physical, economic, social, institutional, and ecological) of the local community resilience in the wake of the COVID-19 disaster, and the elements that can further strengthen it. Results show that although there are some networks in place for people to rely on and to support each other, there is still much room for improvement, especially for what concerns local institutional policies. The results are expected to be useful for policy making and for long-term, sustainable, and inclusive management of the risks posed by COVID-19 and future crises looming on the horizon, such as climate change.
2021
All over the world, urban communities take initiative in order to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic. This study conducts a literature review and an international exploratory study in order to identify pathways within which Community Resilience Initiatives (CRIs) emerge within different governance contexts. The CRIs target vulnerable communities, which are hard to reach. Our study results identify four pathways: (1) informal bottom-up community initiatives; (2) formal community initiatives emerging out of existing community-based initiatives; (3) initiatives of external actors, often NGOs, universities or governments and (4) networks of organisations whom together initiate action in response to COVID-19. The pathways lead to different types, scales and complexities of the initiatives. However, all face similar barriers related to funding, weak networks and limited cooperation. CRIs often perceive the government agencies to be unreliable and unsupportive which in turn also hampers CRI’s...
Resilience Matters: Strengthening Communities in an Era of Upheaval
Resilience Matters, 2018
In the years since Island Press launched the Urban Resilience Project, the need for information on how to build resilient, equitable cities has only become more urgent. The latest UN climate reports show that we have precious little time to avert the worst impacts of climate change, even as our communities must adapt to rising seas, monster storms, devastating wildfires, and more. Island Press and its diverse community of authors have much to contribute to this effort. Our work takes on the defining challenges of our time: climate resilience and social equity. Through articles, op-eds, and other writing, we spotlight solutions and tell the stories of people on the front lines of the climate crisis. A selection of those stories and solutions from the year 2018 have now been collected in this e-book, Resilience Matters: Strengthening Communities in an Era of Upheaval.
A growing body of community resilience literature emphasizes the importance of social resources in preparing for and responding to disturbances. In particular, scholars have noted that community based organizations and strong social networks positively contribute to adaptive capacity, or the ability to adjust and respond to change while enhancing the conditions necessary to withstand future events. While it is well established that strong civic engagement and social networks contribute to enhanced adaptive capacity in times of change, there is more to learn about how adaptive capacity at the civic group and network level is impacted temporally by multiple and compounding crises. Research has shown that the ability for communities to adapt and respond to crisis is closely tied to longer term recovery. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has overlapped and intersected with multiple additional climate crises as well as a reigniting of the ongoing American reckoning with racial injustice, the ability for communities to adapt and respond to compounding crises seems more crucial than ever. This paper uses qualitative data from semi-structured interviews with 34 civic environmental stewardship groups in New York City to explore their role in building adaptive capacity. In order to better understand how past crises have impacted stewardship groups' response to COVID-19, we focus on how groups have demonstrated flexibility and learning at an organizational scale. We look at two other crises, both acute (Superstorm Sandy, which hit the East Coast in 2012) and chronic (systemic racism) to identify instances of learning that lead to organizational transformation. We further aim to understand how group professionalization, measured by budget and staff size, and network connectivity impact their actions. By comparing the groups' experiences and responses to each event, we uncover strategies learned from past events (e.g., sharing contact lists, holding internal dialogues, leveraging new funding sources) that enable stewardship groups to respond to disaster in a way that builds their organizational adaptive capacity as well as contributes to the long-term resilience of their communities.
Global Tapestry of Alternatives, 2022
The contributions to this series are a result of collaborations with inspiring peoples and networks from various regions that the Global Tapestry of Alternatives has been connected with (GTA). This second volume has contributionscovering stories in 8 countries. Including: "Cargonomia, Budapest: Resilience Through Cooperation and Creativity During COVID-19" in Budapest, Hungary; "Responses from the Kurdish Women’s Movement" in North and East Syria; "Indigenous Self-determination and Coping with COVID-19" in Lomerío, Santa Cruz, Bolivia; "Social Economy and the Commons in Portugal" in Lisbon, Portugal; "Food Sovereignty in El Parque de la Papa - Potato Park" in Pisac, Peru; "Indigenous rights and ecological care at Snowchange Cooperative" in The Circumpolar North, Finland; "Food Sovereignty in South Africa" and "Cooperation Jackson, community solidarity and mutual aid" Jackson, Mississippi, United States of America.
2021
Since firstly announced as an infectious case in Indonesia in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has significantly impacted to the economy, society, culture, education, and the environment. Although the government has moved with various stimuli, policies and continues to improve vaccination programs, there are still many things that ultimately force people, communities, and individuals to move independently as a form of resilience to this pandemic situation. Community Architects (ARKOM) and informal communities within this group network have worked for a long time in realizing inclusive, disaster-responsive, and participatory settlements. Through a participatory and bottom-up approach that places the community as the main subject of development, ARKOM has succeeded in making a significant contribution to the growth of community resilience to disasters. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presents different challenges than previous disasters. As a new model of disaster, the COVID-19 presen...
Resilience for a community or a city is the ability to maintain essential quality of life functions and services for its residents when a severe disruptive event or sequence of events occurs. Resilience is fundamentally a local capacity. No matter how widespread a disruption’s impacts may be, people will always have to deal with immediate, on-the-ground impacts that affect lives and infrastructure in their local areas. Nevertheless, strategies and policies for building resilient communities must be both bottom-up and top-down. This paper is intended to stimulate a broader conversation about what resilience means and the reasons why it is important, and an exploration of strategies and policies we can undertake for building resilience at each level of our social and economic systems.