Neighborhood Solidarity as a Local Response to the Emergency of the Pandemic

Abstract

The contribution aims to analyze the effects that, in the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, the experience of forced distancing generated, territorially, on the forms of social bond and solidarity. In addition to attempting a systematization of the aspects emerging from the sociological literature in this specific thematic area, the essay intends to retrace the specificities of the Italian experience to explore the repercussions of the pandemic in a territorial context (the city of Florence). Specifically, we present the results of research aimed at investigating if and how relations and forms of solidarity among neighbors have changed within different social groups. In order to analyze these transformations, we adopted a mixed-methods approach inspired by the model of convergent parallel design. We performed a combined collection of quantitative and qualitative data through a web survey and a case study carried out with semi-structured interviews and ethnographic observations. The analysis has been conducted by distinguishing between the sub-sample group of those who were already involved in formal volunteer work and those who first became active in neighborly support in the context of the pandemic, in the form of informal volunteering. The main results showed that the majority of the participants were involved in at least one form of support for neighbors during the lockdown and revealed that these different forms of activation of solidarity also regarded who were not previously active in the sphere of formal volunteer work that responded to the new vulnerability caused by the crisis of the pandemic. Also, results on informal support confirm the cruciality of the emotional support, over and beyond the economic support, acquired in the specific context of the health emergency. In line with previous research, also our findings on online sociality revealed the crucial role of online medium in sustaining different forms of informal help for neighbors and for most vulnerable subjects. The case study questions the results of the survey, as it takes into consideration the variety of meanings found in the forms of solidarity and their different degrees of transversality with respect to the social groups. The qualitative analysis thus reveals the existence of solidarity networks which, though often not superimposable, find the same roots in relations of proximity, thereby becoming promoters of an anti-utilitarian mentality that recreates a trusting relationship among neighbors. It is in these forms of solidarity that we find the potential for de-structuring group identities, whether generational or national, alongside the ambition to recover urban spaces as a necessary first step towards reaching the goal of social equity in the collective fruition of the city. In perspective, it remains to be seen whether these initiatives of mutual aid have succeeded or not in generating and depositing in the localities involved memories of the pandemic strong enough to redesign community boundaries and lengthen the otherwise ephemeral timespan of solidarity.