Project description

During the Covid-19 pandemic, an extraordinary grassroots mobilization for solidarity brought people together to support the most vulnerable members of society in accessing basic necessities, such as food and medicine. These grassroots efforts chose to call themselves mutual aid, using a label which has a long history for social movements, and which describes a form of activism that creates political solidarity while helping people meet their basic needs. Drawing on interviews with activists and digital data, I examine (post)pandemic mutual aid projects in the United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States, focusing in particular on how activists navigated the potentialities and limitations of digital technologies to organize for solidarity. Can mutual aid activism chart a future of hope? And can we imagine digital technologies that are explicitly directed at supporting collective care and solidarity? At AIAS, I will develop a book manuscript based on this comparative research.

Short Bio

My work focuses on digital technologies, activism, and social justice. Before joining AIAS, I was a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Glasgow, UK. In 2023/24 I was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Internet Studies (CAIS) in Bochum, Germany. I was previously a postdoc at the University of Michigan and the University of Pennsylvania. I hold a PhD in Communication from the University of Pennsylvania (US).