Kingston University London, London, UK.
Fluminense Federal University, Niterói, Brazil.
Br J Soc Psychol. 2022 Oct;61(4):1245-1262. doi: 10.1111/bjso.12535. Epub 2022 Mar 29.
People across the world have responded to the pandemic by mobilizing and organizing to support their communities, setting up mutual aid groups to provide practical, financial, and social support. Mutual aid means short-term 'crisis response' for some, while for other groups, it is a chance to radically restructure society, and what it means to be a member of that society. Drawing on social representations theory and previous work on citizenship in social and political psychology, we examined the ways in which mutual aid was understood and performed by members of UK Covid-19 mutual aid groups. We conducted 29 interviews with members of these groups in May/June 2020. A reflexive thematic analysis showed that mutual aid groups were characterized as complex, efficient, and non-hierarchical units, operating on the principles of solidarity, kindness, and trust. Two tensions were evident in the data, specifically between (1) collaboration with existing organizations and structures (e.g., local government and the police), and resistance to it and (2) maximizing group inclusivity and sustaining political critique. Findings are discussed in relation to existing theoretical and empirical work on citizenship and mutual aid groups.
世界各地的人们通过动员和组织来支持社区，成立互助组织，提供实际、财务和社会支持，以应对这一流行病。互助对一些人来说意味着短期的“危机应对”，而对其他团体来说，这是一个彻底重构社会的机会，也是成为该社会成员的意义所在。本研究借鉴社会表征理论和社会与政治心理学中关于公民身份的先前工作，考察了英国新冠疫情互助组织成员对互助的理解和实践方式。我们在 2020 年 5 月至 6 月期间对这些团体的成员进行了 29 次访谈。反思性主题分析表明，互助团体的特点是复杂、高效和非层级结构的单位，其运作原则是团结、善良和信任。数据中存在两个明显的紧张关系，具体表现在（1）与现有组织和结构（如地方政府和警察）的合作与抵制之间，以及（2）最大限度地提高团体包容性和维持政治批判之间。研究结果将参照现有关于公民身份和互助团体的理论和实证工作进行讨论。
