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What is ‘community resilience’? Responding to COVID-19 in rural Zimbabwe

Based on real-time recording and reflection of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, this article identifies the features of ‘community resilience’ across sites in rural Zimbabwe. The findings confirm the importance of local knowledge, social networks and communication, as highlighted in the literatur...

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Autores principales: Bwerinofa, Iyleen Judy, Mahenehene, Jacob, Manaka, Makiwa, Mulotshwa, Bulisiwe, Murimbarimba, Felix, Mutoko, Moses, Sarayi, Vincent, Scoones, Ian
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BMJ Publishing Group 2022
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9515458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36167406
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-009528
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author Bwerinofa, Iyleen Judy
Mahenehene, Jacob
Manaka, Makiwa
Mulotshwa, Bulisiwe
Murimbarimba, Felix
Mutoko, Moses
Sarayi, Vincent
Scoones, Ian
author_facet Bwerinofa, Iyleen Judy
Mahenehene, Jacob
Manaka, Makiwa
Mulotshwa, Bulisiwe
Murimbarimba, Felix
Mutoko, Moses
Sarayi, Vincent
Scoones, Ian
author_sort Bwerinofa, Iyleen Judy
collection PubMed
description Based on real-time recording and reflection of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, this article identifies the features of ‘community resilience’ across sites in rural Zimbabwe. The findings confirm the importance of local knowledge, social networks and communication, as highlighted in the literature. In addition, a number of other aspects are emphasised, including the importance of adaptable livelihoods, innovation and collective learning. Flexible adaptation was especially important for responding to lockdowns, as livelihoods had to be reconfigured in response to public health measures. Meanwhile, innovation and shared learning was vital for generating local treatment responses to the disease. In the Zimbabwe context, these adaptation and innovation capabilities emerge from a particular historical experience where resilience in the face of harsh economic conditions and in the absence of state support has been generated over years. This is often a more resigned coping than a positive, empowering, transformational form of resilience. While adaptation, innovation and shared learning capabilities proved useful during the pandemic, they are not evenly spread, and there is no singular ‘community’ around which resilience emerges. The article therefore argues against seeing ‘community resilience’ as the magic bullet for disaster preparedness and response in the context of pandemics. Instead, the highly differentiated local practices of adaptation, innovation and shared learning—across gender, age and wealth differences—should be seen as an important complement to public, state-led support in health emergencies and so are part of a wider, plural health system.
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spelling pubmed-95154582022-09-28 What is ‘community resilience’? Responding to COVID-19 in rural Zimbabwe Bwerinofa, Iyleen Judy Mahenehene, Jacob Manaka, Makiwa Mulotshwa, Bulisiwe Murimbarimba, Felix Mutoko, Moses Sarayi, Vincent Scoones, Ian BMJ Glob Health Original Research Based on real-time recording and reflection of responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, this article identifies the features of ‘community resilience’ across sites in rural Zimbabwe. The findings confirm the importance of local knowledge, social networks and communication, as highlighted in the literature. In addition, a number of other aspects are emphasised, including the importance of adaptable livelihoods, innovation and collective learning. Flexible adaptation was especially important for responding to lockdowns, as livelihoods had to be reconfigured in response to public health measures. Meanwhile, innovation and shared learning was vital for generating local treatment responses to the disease. In the Zimbabwe context, these adaptation and innovation capabilities emerge from a particular historical experience where resilience in the face of harsh economic conditions and in the absence of state support has been generated over years. This is often a more resigned coping than a positive, empowering, transformational form of resilience. While adaptation, innovation and shared learning capabilities proved useful during the pandemic, they are not evenly spread, and there is no singular ‘community’ around which resilience emerges. The article therefore argues against seeing ‘community resilience’ as the magic bullet for disaster preparedness and response in the context of pandemics. Instead, the highly differentiated local practices of adaptation, innovation and shared learning—across gender, age and wealth differences—should be seen as an important complement to public, state-led support in health emergencies and so are part of a wider, plural health system. BMJ Publishing Group 2022-09-27 /pmc/articles/PMC9515458/ /pubmed/36167406 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-009528 Text en © Author(s) (or their employer(s)) 2022. Re-use permitted under CC BY-NC. No commercial re-use. See rights and permissions. Published by BMJ. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open access article distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited, appropriate credit is given, any changes made indicated, and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) .
spellingShingle Original Research
Bwerinofa, Iyleen Judy
Mahenehene, Jacob
Manaka, Makiwa
Mulotshwa, Bulisiwe
Murimbarimba, Felix
Mutoko, Moses
Sarayi, Vincent
Scoones, Ian
What is ‘community resilience’? Responding to COVID-19 in rural Zimbabwe
title What is ‘community resilience’? Responding to COVID-19 in rural Zimbabwe
title_full What is ‘community resilience’? Responding to COVID-19 in rural Zimbabwe
title_fullStr What is ‘community resilience’? Responding to COVID-19 in rural Zimbabwe
title_full_unstemmed What is ‘community resilience’? Responding to COVID-19 in rural Zimbabwe
title_short What is ‘community resilience’? Responding to COVID-19 in rural Zimbabwe
title_sort what is ‘community resilience’? responding to covid-19 in rural zimbabwe
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9515458/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/36167406
http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmjgh-2022-009528
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