Abstract
This research explores ways public service ecosystems developed during the COVID-19 pandemic, focusing on relationships between community-led mutual aid groups and the state. Data were collected through in-depth interviews, focus groups, and mobile ethnographic methods with 30 participants from the public sector and three mutual aid groups across Scotland. We show how relationships between mutual aid groups and the state–whether complementary, supplementary, or adversarial–shifted over the course of the pandemic. Our findings add nuance to understandings that presuppose mutual aid as antagonistic, highlighting ways that mutual aid groups may be brought into existing public service ecosystems.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 313-333 |
| Journal | Public Management Review |
| Volume | 26 |
| Issue number | 2 |
| Early online date | 06 Jun 2022 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 2024 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 The Author(s). Published by Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
Keywords
- civil society
- Mutual aid
- public health
- public management
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Public Administration
Access to Document
- Relationships between community-led mutual aid groups and the state during the COVID-19 pandemic: complementary, supplementary, or adversarial?
Copyright 2022 the authors. This is an open access article published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the author and source are cited.