Crisis, capitalism, and the anarcho-geographies of community self-help

The Ministry of Religious Congregations to People Affected by the SARS-CoV-2 Coronavirus in Poland: Geographies of Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic

“…The study results presented in this work belong to broad discussion of care in multiple spacial scales which has been developing for many years in human geographies and which will probably become even more dynamic due to the pending COVID-19 pandemic (Conradson, 2003;Iacovone et al, 2020;McEwan & Goodman, 2010;Milligan & Power, 2009;Springer, 2020;White & Williams, 2017). It is worth noting a peculiar distribution of care nature between monks and nuns, meaning that nuns mostly offered nursing and medical services, while the monks provided chiefly spiritual services, being chaplains, although some of them, though scarce, offered nursing as well.…”

“…The difficult time of the pandemic has been and continues to be a time of rebirth of reciprocity, compassion and care, a time of reawakened sensitivity, gratitude, kindness and solidarity among people in every corner of the globe (Diavolo, 2020;Rigal & Joseph-Goteiner, 2021;Solnit, 2020;Springer, 2020;Strobel, 2021). Inspired by the concept of geographies of care (Conradson, 2003;Iacovone et al, 2020;McEwan & Goodman, 2010;Springer, 2020;White & Williams, 2017) and the new developments in research on religion in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic and social distancing (Baker et al, 2020;Kearns, 2021;Seryczyńska et al, 2021), we began our research on the role of religious congregations in combatting the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and supporting the individuals and local communities affected by SARS-CoV-2 in Poland. Another important impulse for undertaking this research came from our personal (or even family) relationships with many women and men religious who were helping in different "battlefields" against SARS-CoV-2.…”

Caring geographies: The COVID-19 interregnum and a return to mutual aid

“…In the shell of the old, we are rediscovering that all of the skills, ingenuity, strength, and innovation that we are able to muster as a species depend not upon the state, not upon capitalism, and not upon the command of any authority, but on our collectivity. It is the caring geographies of togetherness that make us who we are, and it is reciprocity that has brought the human journey to the present moment (White and Williams, 2017). The COVID-19 interregnum may well be remembered as the moment that marks the transition toward recovering a world that has always been with us.…”

People, power and politics: Developing a public sector sharing economy

“…In their analysis of non-commodified forms of sharing and mutual aid in households, White and Williams (2018) raise important and relevant questions related to a further distinction that Katrini (2018) draws between the sharing economy and sharing culture; namely that the former comprises an alternative form of capitalism and the latter an alternative economic system. They argue, for example, that a society organized along non-hierarchical and cooperative lines is not only necessary to challenge capitalism's destructive crisis-tendencies, but that this is already in existence today.…”