A community-based response to the COVID-19 pandemic: Social capital in action

This study analyzes a community-based crisis response to the COVID-19 pandemic in a socioeconomically deprived area in Malmö, Sweden, where a gap regarding accessible information was perceived. It aims at furthering the understanding of how social capital may facilitate collective action, thereby contributing to the understanding of community resilience in the face of risks, uncertainty, and hardships. An ethnographic method based on observations and focus groups interviews was employed. By applying Dynes' elaboration of Coleman's outline of social capital, in a crisis context, as well as assuming bonding, bridging, and linking social capital as available mechanisms for mobilizing collective resources across a socially layered context, the study confirmed a capacity to respond in a timely way – a response facilitated by collective assets embedded in relationships and networks, that is, social capital. The result confirms the significance of having a pre-crisis capacity to meet existing needs effectively, and of having a normative basis of reciprocity that ensures an inclusive response, founded on an emergency consensus. This speaks for a complementary bottom-up model for a community-based crisis planning approach and has implications for the supportive roles that both public and civil sectors can play in recognizing the importance of social capital in building resilience. Support provided to local communities can enable them to develop emergent organizations countering social inequalities in disasters, and it could, if integrated into the contingency system, translate into more inclusive responses to future crises.