Mutual Aid in north London during the Covid-19 pandemic

Chevée, Adélie

doi:10.1080/14742837.2021.1890574

Cited by 39 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…Encouraging the engagement of members in community activities can boost the psychological sense of belongingness through member interactions and the mere realization that neighbors and community members will help in an emergency, especially when the state‐response is inadequate. Such autonomous community initiatives were enacted successfully by North‐London mutual aid groups, during the lockdown (Chevée, 2021) distributing and securing essentials (e.g., food and medication) to vulnerable and neglected populations during the lockdown.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community cohesion during the first peak of the COVID‐19 pandemic: A social antidote to health anxiety and stress

Svensson

Elntib

2021

J Applied Social Pyschol

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Social support gained through community ties has been pivotal in dealing with stressful events. A cross‐sectional community sample ( N = 2,329) was gathered to assess community cohesion buffering against heath anxiety and perceived stress during the first peak of the pandemic in the UK, using structural equation modeling analyses. Community cohesion acted as a protective mechanism against both health anxiety and stress during the first national lockdown. A strong positive association was also found between health anxiety and stress. Stress and health anxiety scores peaked in the first weeks of the imposed quarantine; as the lockdown was extended, participants reported lower stress, health anxiety and community cohesion scores. The reduction of community cohesion scores was greater for those younger than 45 while the positive association between stress and health anxiety was stronger among males during the lockdown. While community cohesion effects against health anxiety were enhanced for females, community's buffering against stress were greater for males. Strengthening citizens' psychological sense of community through the publicization and support of local initiatives and mutual‐aid groups and utilizing methodically green (and blue) spaces to boost neighborhood attraction might be viable strategies within which stress and health anxiety can be suppressed. Conversely, allowing community, regional and national cracks to deepen can exacerbate the impact of stressful events experienced during the COVID‐19 pandemic.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Community cohesion during the first peak of the COVID‐19 pandemic: A social antidote to health anxiety and stress

Svensson

Elntib

2021

J Applied Social Pyschol

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“…She describes how shortlived and ephemeral Self-organised Social Solidarity (Internet-based and supported) becomes more important than NGOs and public institutions in moments of sudden crises that require prompt responses. Research on grassroots activism during the Covid-19 pandemic supports these findings (Chevée, 2021).…”

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confidence: 82%

Book Review: Platforms, Protests, and the Challenge of Networked Democracy

Kowalewski

2021

New Media & Society

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Edited volumes usually offer a chance to explore a spectrum of phenomena, preferring to take a broad view of an issue rather than focusing on a single point. This is the case with the Platforms, Protests, and the Challenge of Networked Democracy, edited by John Jones and Michael Trice, in which the authors of 18 chapters highlight the diverse political roles, impacts and effects of social media platforms on networked democracy and communication spaces.The volume deals with the impact of social media on what we used to call the public sphere. There is an interesting paradox hidden here (which, I believe, is not fully explained in the volume) -the object of social media's influence (i.e. democracy, public sphere, deliberation, communication) is no longer the same as it was. Thus, it is not always possible to indicate whether the public sphere is becoming more similar to social media (glorifying personalisation and the skilful management of social bubbles) or vice versa. The information, democracy and political communication are changing their nature, becoming hybrids that continue to evolve. Instead of being under the influence of digital tools, they are under pressure from different factors, such as the global economy and related crises. Research in the field of communication studies and political science treats Twitter data as a primary source of information on trends, transmissions, and networks of political views, which results not only from easy access to a massive amount of data but also from the assumption that this is the real public sphere. Yet these threads are missing from the book under review. Another overlooked aspect is space: with improved smartphones and geolocation systems, significant changes are occurring not only in democracy and the practice of politics but also in their control.An important domain of inquiry in this volume -and especially in the first section, entitled 'The State of Deliberation, Community, and Democracy on Social Media' -is that of digital platforms (such as Facebook, Twitter, Reddit). Digital platforms have become, alongside the state, political parties, and other non-state actors, some of the most important participants in democracy. In their introduction, the editors of the volume rightly draw attention to their integration with political systems, emphasising that platforms strike a balance between openness and control, a rank-and-file, civic character and 'big player' business, and information and disinformation.

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“…Interviews of MK-based volunteers confirms that some organisations were able to respond in a matter of days but for others it was weeks before they could adapt to the new situation and provide safe and effective support to those who needed it. Volunteer and community organisations benefited from their pre-existing knowledge of vulnerable individuals [42] and were able to reach and support people that robots could not reach, but they could not easily identify and reach people who had not considered themselves vulnerable before the pandemic. Those same individuals were potentially excluded from government initiatives intended to ensure that vulnerable people could get food [43], which were subject to triage [44] and in consequence excluded some individuals who considered themselves vulnerable but were not considered a priority.…”

Section: Robots and Vulnerable Populationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Humans and robots coping with crisis – Starship, Covid-19 and urban robotics in an unpredictable world

Valdez¹,

Cook²,

Potter³

2021

2021 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics (SMC)

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In 2018 "Starship" grocery delivery robots were first introduced in Milton Keynes (MK), a new town in England, to automate a task that is difficult to perform in a cost-effective manner by humansthat of on-demand grocery delivery. Two years later the Covid-19 pandemic rendered routine activities such as delivering groceries or visiting the supermarket unexpectedly unsafe. The ability of robots to operate in environments that are dangerous for humans was brought into sharp relief by the Covid-19 pandemic but it may also be relevant in other crisis situations such as those that may be caused by heat waves, blizzards and other extreme events associated with climate change. Drawing on a case study of Starship robots in MK, this contribution investigates the potential of robotic and autonomous systems to provide cities with tools for coping with such unexpected situations. I. INTRODUCTIONThe introduction of robots in urban spaces has considerable transformative potential and delivers technological capabilities and capacities beyond human abilities and existing infrastructural possibilities [1], automating and augmenting complex urban tasks that are unattractive, repetitive or labour intensive as well as those that are highly complex or dangerous [2]. In 2018 "Starship" grocery delivery robots were first introduced in Milton Keynes (MK), a new town in England, to automate a task that is difficult to perform in a cost-effective manner by humansthat of on-demand grocery delivery. Two years later the Covid-19 pandemic rendered routine activities such as delivering groceries or visiting the supermarket unexpectedly unsafe. The service performed by grocery delivery robots, which was merely intended to be convenient and costeffective, unexpectedly became the safe alternative to a task that was potentially too dangerous for humans to perform. The ability of robots to operate in environments that are dangerous for humans was indeed brought into sharp relief by the Covid-19 pandemic but it is also likely to be relevant in other crisis situations [3] such as those that may be caused by heat waves, blizzards and other extreme events associated with climate change. Drawing on a case study of Starship robots in MK, this contribution investigates the potential of robotic and autonomous systems to provide cities with tools for coping with such unexpected situations. Urban robots are the physical agents of AI-driven autonomous systems designed to make decisions in real time and negotiate complicated tasks in dynamic contexts. Urban AIs are designed for learning, dealing with complex M.Valdez -corresponding author.

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Mutual Aid in north London during the Covid-19 pandemic

Cited by 39 publications

References 2 publications

Community cohesion during the first peak of the COVID‐19 pandemic: A social antidote to health anxiety and stress

Community cohesion during the first peak of the COVID‐19 pandemic: A social antidote to health anxiety and stress

Book Review: Platforms, Protests, and the Challenge of Networked Democracy

Humans and robots coping with crisis – Starship, Covid-19 and urban robotics in an unpredictable world

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