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Accepted Paper:
From social infrastructure to pandemic resilience?: Learning from and with community-based organisations
Melanie Lombard
(University of Sheffield)
Fiona Anciano
(University of the Western Cape)
Carlos Andrés Tobar Tovar
(Pontificia Universidad Javeriana Cali)
Paper short abstract:
Based on research with NGOs/CBOs in Cape Town and Cali, our paper asks, To what extent can the social infrastructure provided by community-based organisations' pandemic response support (new understandings of) community resilience in cities? Here we present framework, methods and early findings.
Paper long abstract:
Faced with Covid's asymmetrical effects in cities, low-income communities have a critical role in building local resilience. Globally, both pandemic and control measures severely affected residents' ability to meet basic needs, particularly relating to food, services (e.g. health, education and childcare), and access to reliable information. Community-based organisations (CBOs) have played a decisive role in pandemic response in many low-income neighbourhoods, mitigating vulnerabilities by responding to gaps in basic needs provisioning. Yet little is known about their enhanced role in pandemic response, or how this affects community capacity to withstand future crises. Our research explores CBOs' pandemic responses, applying the concept 'social infrastructure' (MacFarlane and Silver 2017) to capture innovative responses to basic needs gaps, dynamic emerging practices, and contextual factors. Using this lens, we explore how CBOs in two highly unequal cities, Cape Town and Cali, have addressed needs relating to food, care and digital inclusion. These three spheres reveal the 'socio-material relations that sustain urban life' (McFarlane & Silver 2017, 463), wherein 'people as infrastructure' (Simone 2004) mesh with material/spatial elements (e.g. food parcels, allotments, care packages, phones, charging stations), shaped by urban conditions such as overcrowding, inadequate public space, and poor-quality services. This comparative project works with partner NGOs Isandla Institute and Predhesca, and two CBOs in each cities, to gather information in four neighbourhoods. It uses interviews, focus groups, digital diaries and documentary analysis to explore these issues with. This paper will present the theoretical framework, methodology and initial comparative findings from the two research sites.
Click the star to add/remove an item to/from your individual schedule.
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Accepted Paper:
Paper short abstract:
Paper long abstract:
Faced with Covid's asymmetrical effects in cities, low-income communities have a critical role in building local resilience. Globally, both pandemic and control measures severely affected residents' ability to meet basic needs, particularly relating to food, services (e.g. health, education and childcare), and access to reliable information. Community-based organisations (CBOs) have played a decisive role in pandemic response in many low-income neighbourhoods, mitigating vulnerabilities by responding to gaps in basic needs provisioning. Yet little is known about their enhanced role in pandemic response, or how this affects community capacity to withstand future crises. Our research explores CBOs' pandemic responses, applying the concept 'social infrastructure' (MacFarlane and Silver 2017) to capture innovative responses to basic needs gaps, dynamic emerging practices, and contextual factors. Using this lens, we explore how CBOs in two highly unequal cities, Cape Town and Cali, have addressed needs relating to food, care and digital inclusion. These three spheres reveal the 'socio-material relations that sustain urban life' (McFarlane & Silver 2017, 463), wherein 'people as infrastructure' (Simone 2004) mesh with material/spatial elements (e.g. food parcels, allotments, care packages, phones, charging stations), shaped by urban conditions such as overcrowding, inadequate public space, and poor-quality services. This comparative project works with partner NGOs Isandla Institute and Predhesca, and two CBOs in each cities, to gather information in four neighbourhoods. It uses interviews, focus groups, digital diaries and documentary analysis to explore these issues with. This paper will present the theoretical framework, methodology and initial comparative findings from the two research sites.
Challenges to Justice and Equity in a post-Pandemic Context: civil society responses - NGOs in Development Study Group
Session 1 Friday 8 July, 2022, -