In The Logic of Collective Action, Olson uses micro-economic analysis and rational choice theory to conclude that, in the right circumstances, an individual's participation in collective action could be rational. Olson's work was such an immense challenge to collective behaviour models that it shook the field of social movement theory. Extending Olson's application of rational choice theory, John McCarthy and Mayer Zald concentrated their attention on social movement organisation. Melucci uses the 'notoriously abstract concept' of collective identity as a tool to untangle the 'interactive and shared definition produced by several individuals (or groups at a more complex level) and concerned with the orientations of actions and the field of opportunities and constraints in which the action take place'. To sum up, Melucci's understanding of collective identity as an ongoing and reflexive process is a critical contribution to the study of social movements.
While myriad tensions exist in the Athenian anarchist and anti-authoritarian space, temporary solidarity reigns during street-protests. This chapter unravels some of the complexities within Athenian street-protests. It begins by looking at the characteristics of street-protests, performative violence and the role of Black Bloc tactics. The chapter proposes that militant street-protests are acts of political communication and examples of anarchist and anti-authoritarian prefigurative politics. It explores some of the nuances of violence within street-protests and suggests that when it comes time to protest in the street, there is nothing at all pacifist about the space. Finally, the chapter looks at a range of emotions that are expressed, fermented and developed through acts of performative violence. It shows how experiences and elements of street-protest are shared and negotiated amongst actors, contributing to the ongoing construction of Athenian anarchist and anti-authoritarian collective identity.
In this collaborative meditation, the authors explore what a Nordic Black feminist approach to knowledge creation can be. Their interest stems from their friendship as two Black feminists in Norway, working in activist organising and academia. For the authors, theorising in friendship is a methodology of survival, from which they create (disobedient) knowledge. They reflect on how their own knowledge, as well as that of their community members, isn’t always documented, but is developed through experience, and what this means for its use. Both of the authors have experienced severe burnout from this work, which they recognise as a structural and communal issue, impacted simultaneously by Nordic exceptionalist, anti-Black, anti-Muslim, cis-hetero patriarchal, ableist and nationalist structures. They pick apart the reasons for this burnout in the aftermath of the 2020 Black Lives Matter uprisings. They question mainstream academic premises for theory and knowledge as they insist on existing and theorising on their own terms. They take seriously the position of being Black in the Nordics and Europe, as geo-historical realities are different from the culturally dominating US Blackness. From this offset, they explore how the intersection of gender, class, citizenship and sexuality influences their experiences, and those of their communities, as Black subjects in the Nordics, with the aim of contributing to a flexible movement of resistant, critical knowledge and community building.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has a broad, expansive role during a health emergency. Traditionally, the role of the WHO has been normative in nature, providing advice and guidance to member states on best practice during a health emergency. Despite this rather limited explicit legal mandate, the WHO does carry out a number of response functions during a health emergency that go beyond the normative, such as the procurement and delivery of medical supplies, and in some circumstances provides health services in a ‘boots on the ground’ manner. This chapter is concerned with the accountability of the WHO for the exercise of power during these ‘operational activities’. The chapter argues that at present there are limited control mechanisms over WHO operational activities during a health emergency. This is particularly apparent when the WHO operates through an external public-private partnership, such as COVAX, with this ultimately functioning to produce an additional layer of complexity with regards to the achievement of good governance.
This chapter throws a spotlight upon the rapid innovations achieved by arts and cultural organisations, from civic institutions to grass-roots enterprises, in response to COVID-19 in one specific city region, Liverpool. It explores the valuable lessons to be learned for practice and policy from the ways in which these novel solutions have stimulated a re-imagining of arts in mental healthcare in the aftermath of the pandemic. Liverpool City Region (LCR) has one of the richest concentrations of culture in the UK and a pioneering history of harnessing arts for mental health care. Yet, even before the current crisis, LCR had some of the poorest mental health outcomes in the country, and the highest concentration of adults seeking mental health services nationally. With the NHS increasingly overstretched, the role of arts and culture in providing stigma-free environments to re-connect the vulnerable and isolated, is more critical than ever. This chapter offers compelling case studies of the extraordinary adaptations to COVID-19 by arts organisations, their beneficiaries and health and social care providers. These dynamically responsive examples of regional arts-in-health innovations speak powerfully to a growing interest in understanding how a local arts-in-health infrastructure might contribute towards improved outcomes for individuals and communities. They also highlight our key finding and its relevance to the current levelling up agenda: the urgent priority of mobilising the transformative power of arts and culture for mental health and wellbeing needs through cooperative partnerships, co-ordinated programmes for social prescribing and targeted support for digital literacy.
For more than twenty years, Clod Ensemble’s Performing Medicine programme, directed by Suzy Willson, has brought healthcare professionals and medical students together with world-class artists including dancers, movement artists and musicians, to share invaluable knowledge and experience of working non-verbally and working creatively to improve healthcare provision. This chapter will explore how Performing Medicine (PM) responded to the outbreak of COVID-19 and shares findings from Communicating through Covid – a collaborative research project undertaken during the pandemic. We share the findings of interviews with healthcare professionals and creative workshops with artists, which aimed to understand the challenges faced by these groups as a result of COVID-19 and to discover if there were lessons from creative practice that could address the challenges experienced. Informed by these findings, we outline our programme of creative interventions that were co-developed with a small group of artists. The research undertaken by a combined team of academic, artistic and healthcare professionals shows that arts-based strategies can play an integral role in recovery from the pandemic for those working in healthcare settings. The findings offer viable strategies to address critical issues and bring teams together who have been fragmented by the demands of the response to COVID-19.
Community assets play an important role in public health and social cohesion. During the COVID-19 pandemic there was an increase in informal mutual aid across different communities while many individuals turned to salutogenic activities – such as art, music, being in nature, physical exercise, spiritual or philosophical reflections. Yet there still appears to be a mismatch between ad-hoc salutogenic engagement and that instigated by statutory services such as social prescribing. Community COVID was an eighteen-month research project funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The project explored how individuals engaged in salutogenic activities from both a community and systems perspective, with a sub focus on marginalised and vulnerable communities (including those experiencing socioeconomic, physiological and/or psychological vulnerabilities). A mixed methods approach was used to capture the experiences of different people across the community. In depth interviews were conducted with seventy-four members of the community, a subset of whom were vulnerable and shielding. Art observations were carried out to test novel ways of understanding autobiographical narratives and pandemic experiences of vulnerable and shielding individuals. Further interviews, focus groups, workshops and surveys were carried out among participants and professionals such as social prescribing link workers, community workers, and other third sector professionals embedded within communities. There were several key findings from these data: (1) barriers to participation; (2) tangible benefits of salutogenic activities; (3) impact on loneliness and wellbeing; (4) an evolving health service; (5) adaptation of services; (6) a fragile community ecosystem; (7) a surge in social prescribing activity.
This chapter presents findings from Museums, Crisis, and COVID-19 (MCC), a project at Ulster University (2020–2022) connecting academics, heritage professionals, curators, and community representatives to explore how museums in Northern Ireland can contribute to community resilience and wellbeing in the light of COVID-19. The pandemic became a chronic crisis that affected us at an individual, community and societal level. Traditionally, museums may not be the first place that people or policymakers might think about in the context of community recovery. However, the unprecedented nature of COVID-19 provided a unique opportunity for innovative, unique interdisciplinary approaches to community resilience to emerge in museum practice. Findings from the project are reviewed, including how museums and heritage spaces in Northern Ireland are likely to become important locations for telling the story of COVID-19 in the future. The therapeutic significance of such spaces in facilitating the commemoration of what has been a traumatic event for society and communities is discussed, including the importance of resources to support museums to develop new, innovative approaches which emerged during the pandemic. By consolidating the sector as future sites of wellbeing and renewal, it extends the multiple roles of museums in curating the past and engaging with disparate groups making them a location for people to reflect on the impact of COVID-19. Such roles, we argue, should be given greater attention by policymakers because of their importance in the wider context of supporting community health and wellbeing.
The preface sets the context for the Pandemic and Beyond series and outlines how it is shaped by and sits within the research and funding landscape for arts and humanities during the pandemic. The series arises from a research co-ordination project funded by the UK’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) and brought together over 70 solutions-focused research projects that addressed the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic between 2020 and 2022. The preface reflects on the unique conditions that shaped this body of research and the methodologies employed, and on the importance of arts and humanities research in addressing the human impacts that intersected in this moment, working to resolve them, mitigate harms, and examine some of the most fundamental human questions across macro and micro crisis contexts. It argues that the series exemplifies the creation of a ‘pandemic humanities’ that demonstrates how arts and humanities are a vital tool in responding to and preparing for complex crises.
As locations that interpret and present the histories of places and people, museums are affective spaces with emotional impacts shaping how we think about ourselves and others. The emotional impact of museums is primarily considered from the perspective of the visitor, with museums as ‘places where people go to feel, to be emotional’. What is less well established is the emotional resonance of museums as a place of work. Those employed in museums, cultural or heritage sectors can become rooted in their work, drawing upon their personal histories as motivation and inspiration, influencing the subject matter they engage with or the approaches they take. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, the emotional labour of museum work was both exposed and intensified in workers’ responses to the crisis. This chapter is a consideration of the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the museum workforce in Northern Ireland, drawing upon findings from the UKRI-funded project Museums, Crisis and Covid19, based at Ulster University. Focusing on the workplace, we argue, is another route to understanding museum impacts, purposes, value and ethics, an avenue that is barely touched on in existing museum studies literature. Drawing upon interviews, focus group discussions and workshops with people working in and with museums, from a variety of positions and institutions in Northern Ireland, this chapter begins to fill that gap in understanding.