Complicating Responsibilization: Narratives of state abandon and community resilience amidst Covid-19
Topics: Political Geography
, Cultural Geography
, Hazards, Risks, and Disasters
Keywords: emergency, resilience, responsibilization, state effects
Session Type: Virtual Paper Abstract
Day: Friday
Session Start / End Time: 2/25/2022 02:00 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada)) - 2/25/2022 03:20 PM (Eastern Time (US & Canada))
Room: Virtual 58
Authors:
Nat O'Grady, University of Manchester
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
,
Abstract
Addressing the processes by which roles and obligations are distributed across actors and sites in emergencies, the concept of responsibilization has proven a crucial undercurrent in research that explores the socio-political conditions and effects of emergencies and their governance. Such is evermore the case with the increasing significance afforded to ‘resilience’ discourses across the world. In this paper, I seek to extend debates on responsibilization and resilience through research into localised, community-based forms of response to the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Drawing on ten interviews and eighteen months of ethnographic observation with community groups in the United Kingdom, the paper makes three contributions to research. Firstly, I draw on evidence to argue for a more complex conceptualisation of responsibilization. Irreducible to the transference of responsibility from one site to the next, I characterise responsibilization as an ongoing process that involves the distribution and coordination of various roles across both state and non-state actors. This complexity, I demonstrate secondly, shapes people’s (in)ability to perceive government’s adoption of responsibilities in emergencies. Relatedly, I thirdly turn to document how the obfuscation of government activity from the view of people is generative of a belief in non-state resilience in emergencies, the effects of which may hinder the proliferation of community-based action for emergencies to come.
Complicating Responsibilization: Narratives of state abandon and community resilience amidst Covid-19
Category
Virtual Paper Abstract
Description
This abstract is part of a session. Click here to view the session.
| Slides