How care infrastructures support distance and connection in community welfare organisations: Learning from COVID-19 lockdowns

The coronavirus pandemic forced local support services in marginalised communities to adapt how they operated at the same time as demand for assistance soared. Social distancing restrictions brought into sharp relief the infrastructural dimensions of social care and support services and networks that are often backgrounded in day-to-day practice. A shadow care infrastructures lens looks purposively at care infrastructures that are not readily seen or acknowledged in dominant welfare discourse and research (Power, Wiesel, Mitchell, & Mee, 2022). Taking this analytic lens as our starting point, in this paper we explore how relations of care were reconfigured by the shift to remote care delivery during Covid-19 lockdowns and beyond. The challenges of providing care during lockdown reveal the complex interplay between distance and proximity in care relations and practices and the possibilities for doing care differently. The paper draws primarily on in-depth interviews with paid and voluntary supporters across a diverse range of care organisations servicing two Local Government Areas (LGAs) in Central Western Sydney. A gateway region for new migrants west of the population centre of Sydney, it was one of the areas worst affected by the outbreak of the Delta variant of Covid-19 in 2021. The paper reflects on the potential longevity of pandemic care practices as cities learn to live with Covid. • Covid-19 shifted relations of distance and proximity on the 'frontline' of community-based service delivery. • The reconfiguration of care infrastructures during lockdowns modified the tracks on which community-based care runs. • Remote and digitally mediated forms of care blurred established spatial and professional boundaries of 'home' and 'work'. • Ad hoc and rapid reworking of infrastructures may lead to unintended and lasting changes in post-Covid welfare services.