research-article

Dilemmas in Mutual Aid: Lessons for Crisis Informatics from an Emergent Community Response to the Pandemic

Authors:

Embry OwenAuthors Info & Claims

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

Article No.: 475, Pages 1 - 19

https://doi.org/10.1145/3479862

Published: 18 October 2021 Publication History

Abstract

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, networks of community organizers and activists mobilized to support their neighbors as part of mutual aid groups across the United States. Emergent community response is a common phenomenon during crisis, but mutual aid in the pandemic took on a distinct character, drawing on traditions of political and community organizing. Our research into these activities suggests that mutual aid organizing in relation to disaster is growing practice but remains evolving and contested. Drawing on interviews with organizers of mutual aid groups in New York, we identify a series of four dilemmas that mutual aid organizers encountered in their work, with impacts on their organizational strategy and technology choices. We then raise three implications for crisis informatics to support community response to disaster: taking a long view of crises, centering questions of equity, and adopting a transformative vision of emergency response.

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Index Terms

Dilemmas in Mutual Aid: Lessons for Crisis Informatics from an Emergent Community Response to the Pandemic
1. Human-centered computing
2. Social and professional topics
  1. Professional topics

Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.

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cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction

Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

CSCW2

October 2021

5376 pages

EISSN:2573-0142

DOI:10.1145/3493286

Editor:
Jeff Nichols
Apple Inc., United States

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Copyright © 2021 ACM.

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Published: 18 October 2021

Published in PACMHCI Volume 5, Issue CSCW2

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Upadhyay PBhattacharjee SPaudel SFarzan RLópez CCardoso Llach DQuercia DMustafa MNiu SWong-Villacrés M(2024)Positionality of Researchers Identifying with the "Global South": Shared Heritages, Ways of Thinking and Doing ResearchCompanion Publication of the 2024 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/3678884.3687142(679-683)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3678884.3687142
Baca-Vázquez ABooth KSmith AFarzan RLópez CCardoso Llach DQuercia DMustafa MNiu SWong-Villacrés M(2024)Maintaining a Community of Care: Opportunities and Challenges of ICTs for Contemporary Mutual AidCompanion Publication of the 2024 Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work and Social Computing10.1145/3678884.3681857(233-239)Online publication date: 11-Nov-2024
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