From Charity to Solidarity: Commoning of Care under the Pandemic as an ‘Urgent Utopia’

Keywords: mutual aid, production of space, solidarity, commodification, utopia
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Sunday
Session Start / End Time: 2/27/2022 09:40 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/27/2022 11:00 AM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 73

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic, an unexpected global crisis, has changed everyday life in a short period of time while creating a global emergency. Communities have rapidly responded to this fast-moving situation by creating bottom-up initiatives. COVID-19 mutual aid groups have emerged under these circumstances as a key response by communities for communities. The paper explores the role of COVID-19 mutual aid groups as a community response in mitigating everyday life challenges emerging under a pandemic situation. It presents the results of our emprical study on mutual aid groups in Scotland, which is based on interviews with mutual aid group organisers, volunteers and activists.
The paper argues that COVID-19 mutual aid groups decommodify much-commodified care under capitalist production relations by creating commoning practices in urban space. The paper conceptualises the mutual aid practices as an ‘urgent utopia’ that ‘lies between an ideal utopia, which exists only in purely abstract thought, and a short-term, unimaginative realism that readily assumes, and therefore accepts, existing structures’ (Purcell, 2014, p. 151). It discusses their transformative potential for the post-pandemic world.