What is ‘community resilience’? Responding to COVID-19 in rural Zimbabwe

Abstract

Based on real-time recording and reflection of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, this article identifies the features of ‘community resilience’ across sites in rural Zimbabwe. The findings confirm the importance of local knowledge, social networks and communication, as highlighted in the literature. In addition, a number of other aspects are emphasised, including the importance of adaptable livelihoods, innovation and collective learning. Flexible adaptation was especially important for responding to lockdowns, as livelihoods had to be reconfigured in response to public health measures. Meanwhile, innovation and shared learning was vital for generating local treatment responses to the disease. In the Zimbabwe context, these adaptation and innovation capabilities emerge from a particular historical experience where resilience in the face of harsh economic conditions and in the absence of state support has been generated over years. This is often a more resigned coping than a positive, empowering, transformational form of resilience. While adaptation, innovation and shared learning capabilities proved useful during the pandemic, they are not evenly spread, and there is no singular ‘community’ around which resilience emerges. The article therefore argues against seeing ‘community resilience’ as the magic bullet for disaster preparedness and response in the context of pandemics. Instead, the highly differentiated local practices of adaptation, innovation and shared learning—across gender, age and wealth differences—should be seen as an important complement to public, state-led support in health emergencies and so are part of a wider, plural health system.

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“…The flip side of this may be just as harmful, with community coping strategies romanticised as 'resilient', when in reality they may be unsustainably depleting local resources as they become overwhelmed. The perception that communities are managing well enough on their own can lead to formal responders taking a hands-off approach to the point of 'passing the buck' when only relying on 'community resilience' (Bwerinofa et al 2022b).…”