Narrative resilience in the cross-regional support of healthcare workers during the COVID-19 outbreak: The Chinese experiences of cultural input

Abstract

The healthcare staff who supported Wuhan's rescue work were the first batch of cross-regional supporters during the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. To determine the cultural factors that affected their mental health and resilience, as well as the processes that organizations and individuals underwent to transform cultural resources into benefits. This study collected narrative materials in the form of national and individual statements and used Social Ecology of Resilience theory to analyse them. It identified and analysed the cultural factors of resilience in macrosystems, mesosystems, and microsystems according to four themes, namely: cognition, emotion, will, and behaviour. Altogether, it was found that the national voice adopted an optimistic narrative tone reminiscent of that used during the context of war and that the personal or public voice approved of it. The study revealed that the party and government's use of moral narration derived from its heritage culture and its belief in its continuity in new China's culture served as a mechanism of cultural resilience and mobilisation. The above is the experience of the operation of living culture (LC) and cultural heritage (CH) mentioned in Culture Based Development (CBD). In light of this, it was concluded that the predominant form of cultural input during China's national public health crisis has been storytelling with narrative resilience.