ABSTRACT

Mutual aid, a longstanding practice among socially marginalized communities, has proliferated as a widespread form of collective care amidst the COVID-19 pandemic and compounding crises. We used critical phenomenological methods to understand how participants (N = 25) who engaged in mutual aid in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic conceptualized mutual aid, and how their social identities intersect with their conceptualizations. We found that conceptualizations of mutual aid fell upon a spectrum; some participants (who primarily held privileged social identities) saw mutual aid as a temporary crisis response, which was similar to traditional aid, and could be adjunctive to government support. Others (who tended to hold more marginalized social identities) saw mutual aid as an ongoing support mechanism which was explicitly different than traditional aid and should be separate from government structures. Our research offers insight into mutual aid at a moment of compounding crises and little studied increase in mutual aid. We invite mutual aid groups to consider how their understandings of their work fall upon this spectrum and offer resources for political education in mutual aid work.

摘要

互助是社会边缘化社区的长期做法，在新冠肺炎 (COVID-19) 疫情和复杂的危机中，作为一种广泛的集体关怀形式而得到广泛传播。我们使用批判的现象学方法来了解 在 COVID-19 大流行的最初几个月参与互助的参与者( N = 25) 如何概念化互助，以及他们的社会身份如何与他们的概念化相交叉。我们发现互助的概念有一个范围：一些参与者（主要拥有特权社会身份）将互助视为一种临时的危机应对措施，与传统援助类似，可以作为政府支持的辅助手段。其他人（往往持有更边缘化的社会身份）将互助视为一种持续支持机制与传统援助明显不同，应与政府结构分开。我们的研究提供了对危机加剧时的互助的见解，但对互助增加的研究却很少。我们邀请互助团体思考他们对工作的理解如何属于这个范围，并为互助工作中的政治教育提供资源。