Group processes and interoperability: A longitudinal case study analysis of the UK’s civil contingency response to Covid-19

Our case study explored a Local Resilience Forum’s (LRF) civil contingency response to COVID-19 in the UK. We undertook 19 semi-structured ethnographic longitudinal interviews, between 25th March 2020 and 17th February 2021, with a Director of a Civil Contingencies Unit and a Chief Fire Officer who both played key roles within their LRF. Within these interviews, we focused on their strategic level decision-making and how their relationship with national government impacted on local processes and outcomes. Using a form of grounded theory, our data describes the chronological evolution of an increasingly effective localised approach toward outbreak control and a growing resilience in dealing with concurrent emergency incidents. However, we also highlight how national government organisations imposed central control on aspects of the response in ways that undermined or misaligned with local preparedness. Thus, during emergencies central governments can undermine the principle of subsidiarity and damage the ways in which LRFs can help scaffold local resilience. Our work contributes to the theoretical understanding of the social psychological factors that can shape the behaviour of responder agencies during a prolonged crisis. In particular, the implications of our analysis for advancing our conceptual understanding of strategic decision-making during emergencies are discussed.

The Case of the United Kingdom

This article explores the determinants of local resilience in the form of local COVID-19 mutual aid groups. These groups were formed to offer mutual help to those who had experienced a loss of social quality. We test a series of hypotheses, considering which conditional factors are most connected to the formation of these groups, particularly focusing on those that influenced the earliest and most resilient local response to the pandemic. The presence of radical environmentalist activists is a better predictor of resilient community responsiveness than either the activity of the local state or the activity of more moderate community-based environmental civil society organizations. Conclusions are presented on the implications of these findings for the future of localism, social quality, and public policy in the United Kingdom.

Hierarchical Model of Multi-level Index to Assess Local Resilience Capability in COVID-19

Background Globally, there have been 212,544,565 confirmed cases of Corona Virus disease 2019 (COVID-19), including 4,441,428 deaths by 24 August 2021, reported to WHO. Facing the global pandemic of COVID-19, countries and regions have implemented different policies and taken different non-pharmacological interventions (NPIs) according to their own circumstances. However, the quantitative assessment of national policies and local resilience capabilities is a huge challenge.MethodsIn order to assess interventions and improve local resilience from a comprehensive perspective, this study aims to establish a multi-dimensional and dynamic prevention and control system. The main body of the system is an index system. To make our evaluation system more scientific and useful, the comparative study with several widely used tools or lessons is conducted to report what they have done. Then analytic hierarchy process (AHP) is used to set up the framework under the concept of a multi-level strategy of public health management. Indicators in the system are determined by literature research and expert interviews.ResultsEmergency capability assessment includes building a well-established system, execution of the system, and measurement. The well-established system exhibits several characteristics: 1) considering indicators about whole-of-society involvement, including country-, city-, local community- and individual-level; 2) improving capability at multi-phases, from the preparedness ability to response ability; 3) at both policy level and implementation level. Categories of containment and closure, response in economic system, and response in public health system constitute the main body of the framework. The well-established system does not necessarily apply to all scenarios, and the actual situation should be taken into consideration in the process of implementation/execution. At the stage of measurement, the case of Wuhan/Hubei response is introduced to implement and test our system. Empirical researches will be conducted to verify the index system quantitatively in our future research. ConclusionsOur index system can assess national policies and capabilities quantitatively. When enough data are available, it will become a tool to assess the local resilience capability for countries or regions.

Resilience and Conflict: Evidence from Mali

Exploring the contextualized relationship between conflict and household resilience is a key element of policymaking under the Humanitarian and Development nexus. This paper provides new evidence on conflict and resilience from resilience-enhancing projects in Mali’s Central Sahel cross-border area. In particular, it explores the presence of determinants of resilience that explains conflict exposure; investigates the adoption of conflict-specific coping mechanisms and explores contextual specificities of local resilience capacity. The findings show that certain types of agricultural households have a higher probability of exposure to conflict, while no evidence of public transfers (e.g., cash transfers) increasing the level of exposure to conflicts is found. The results also show that there are elements which explain the adoption (or lack thereof) of coping mechanisms against conflict: social networks play an essential enabling role, as well as education, the level of food consumption, and to some extent, access to public transfers. Finally, the results suggest that female-headed households need more support in order to engage in coping strategies. This paper suggests that resilience-enhancing interventions and analysis require deeper knowledge of the context, paying special attention to the drivers of conflict and coping strategies adopted by households.

Vernacular Knowledge, Natural Disasters, and Climate Change in Monsoon Asia

In Monsoon Asia, home to more than half of the world’s population, extreme climatic events are expected to become more frequent and intense due to climate change. Modern disaster management to date has focused on assessing the risks of natural hazards based on historical data, responding to disasters through prevention and mitigation techniques, and information campaigns, instead of vernacular knowledge cultivated in the local environment. This has led the public to a dangerous complacency about the power of technology over nature, and neglecting the possibility of “unforeseen” events. Climate change has not only made it more difficult to assess the risks of natural hazards, but has also diminished local resilience to them. However, since the adoption of the Hyogo Framework for Action in 2005, Monsoon Asia has begun multi-sectoral efforts to build local resilience to natural hazards by integrating vernacular knowledge into modern disaster management. Whereas in the past, experts and government agencies regarded the public as mere recipients of their services, they have now become acutely aware of the need to build partnerships with local communities to compensate for current technological limitations in disaster management, and to imaginatively prepare for the increasing risks of climatic contingencies. To achieve these goals, vernacular knowledge can be a useful resource, and a number of efforts have been initiated in the region to preserve such knowledge in imaginative forms to pass it on to future generations.

Societal fragilities and resilience: The emergence of peoplehood in Belarus

The article examines societal fragilities and local resilience strategies in Belarus with a particular focus on the notion of peoplehood. Premised on the idea of evolving forms of agency under the Anthropocene, and the emergent complexity-thinking in International Relations, the article draws on these approaches to societal fragilities and community resilience to understand and explain the unprecedented levels of mobilization occurring in Belarus since the disputed presidential election in August 2020. To this end, the article zooms onto the local communities to provide an analytical perspective on the study of resilience as self-organization. In line with complexity-thinking, it argues in favor of history-specific processual identities, shaped by the aspirations of a “good life,” and realized via local support infrastructures which lie at the heart of societal resilience in Belarus. Yet, the potential of all these elements to actualize into a sweeping transformative force, referred to as “peoplehood” in this article, is rare, and comes at a time of unprecedented crises and existential threats to the life of a community. The Belarusian society seems to be undergoing such a moment that not only makes it more resilient and adaptive to change; it also transforms it into a new form of societal being, self-aware of its worth, self-organized, and self-reliant on its inner capabilities to fight for a life of excellence. The article traces these moments of becoming with, and societal being, via a critical discussion of fragilities and the elements of resilience, actualized into peoplehood.

“Invisible” Agents of Rural Development. Russian Immigrant Women in the Finnish Border Region

The rural region of North Karelia is located close to the Finnish-Russian border, and faces challenges due to population decline and labor shortage. However, it has a unique strength which is its proximity to Russia. This paper analyses the perceived role of immigration in enhancing the vitality of North Karelia. It investigates how the impact of immigration is presented in the regional media, and how Russian-speaking immigrant women’s roles as “agents of development” can be interpreted on the basis of their interviews. The analysis is based on text material obtained from the regional newspaper, and ethnographic interviews conducted among Russian-speaking immigrant women. Findings based on the newspaper material indicate that immigrants are valued primarily for their contribution to regional economic development. However, in some of the texts, immigrants are presented as an integral part of the region’s population, who diversify the skills of communities and thus create potential for promoting local resilience. The analysis of the interview data indicates that the proximity of the border, transnational connections, and ethno-cultural capital which is based on immigrants’ national background are important factors that impact on the attractiveness of North Karelia for Russian immigrant women. Everyday transnational multiculturalism encompasses women’s precarious employment which impacts on the well-being of broader communities on both sides of the border. Although Russian immigrant women are a vital part of these communities, they do not themselves participate in the newspaper discussions about the vitality of rural communities. This indicates that Russian women are “invisible” agents of rural development, who are not fully recognized as contributors of resilience in North Karelia.