From complete strangers to social collectives: Lessons from the lockdown

During the COVID-19 pandemic, established institutions scrambled to implement guidelines and frameworks for populations to follow. With widespread disagreement amongst officials about the best course of action, in the initial stages of the pandemic, spontaneous social collectives began to emerge to combat the confusion. As the environmental journalist George Monbiot noted in The Guardian in March 2020, “All over the world, communities have mobilized where governments have failed.” 

In April 2020, when half of the world’s population had been either asked or ordered to stay at home, David Murillo (Esade) and Andreas Georgiou (ESADE phD graduate and currently assistant professor at the University of Exeter) launched a research project to investigate this spontaneous organizing. Their findings, published in the European Management Journal, shed light on the process of sensemaking — how populations attribute meaning to collective experiences — and explore the potential of social collectives in establishing resilience and respect within communities. 

Spontaneous social organizing 

A significant body of pre-pandemic research has explored the role of local groups and organizations during times of crisis. However, a commonality within this literature is the presence of pre-existing social relationships and interactions. With these face-to-face frameworks unavailable during confinement, societies were forced to develop new ways to support each other.  

The acts of solidarity emerging in the earliest days of the pandemic were not necessarily related to pre-existing bonds

Murillo and Georgiou explored the reasoning — or sensemaking — behind the spontaneous nature in which individuals from various backgrounds came together in the pursuit of common goals in these unprecedented circumstances. An open-ended, self-administered survey was disseminated through personal and institutional networks, with a final sample yielding 623 responses from participants in Spain (53.6%), other European countries (31.4%), America (12.4%), and Asia, Africa and Oceania (2.4%). The survey was followed up with in-depth interviews with 17 respondents. 

Contrary to most of the existing research, the responses quickly revealed that the positive acts of solidarity emerging even in the earliest days of the pandemic were not necessarily related to pre-existing attachments or bonds within communities. 

The social stages of COVID-19

After analyzing and coding the data and applying a flexible pattern-matching design, the researchers identified six stages of sensemaking and spontaneous social organizing that took place in response to the pandemic.  

• Neighbors as strangers (pre-pandemic): Many respondents said that pre-pandemic, they hadn’t shared close relationships with their neighbors and often didn’t know each other at all. Even those who were part of pre-existing community groups reported not feeling particularly connected to other group members. But as the lockdowns took hold, social collectives began to emerge. 
• Loss of meaning and order (creation): When the pandemic disrupted lives and routines and brought uncertainty around its social, health-related, political and economic consequences, ‘normal’ ceased to exist. The resulting loss of meaning and order motivated an effort to fill the gap left by institutional voids. 
• The social meaning of confinement (interpretation): During this stage, mortality rates and the number of cases provided a consistent benchmark to which people could direct their attention. Within this contextual framework, their efforts were mainly directed towards protecting vulnerable groups and supporting the healthcare system. 
• Individual and collective solidarity (enactment): This responsibility was enhanced by neighborhood initiatives to protect and support vulnerable people. The inability to conduct in-person activities had the adverse (and positive) effect of bringing people together: without face-to-face interactions, attentions were focused on priorities rather than debating the meaning behind them and allowed communities to act as a collective. 
• New social boundaries (selection): ‘The new normal’ required the setting up of new social boundaries, to this point usually suggested or enforced by authorities. The visible nature of breaking these rules allowed individuals to recognize the new social cues and associated criteria for emerging social collectives. 
• Sense of community (retention): These newly formed social collectives facilitated a sense of emotional contagion and connection. Order and meaning were maintained at a distance through a new shared logic within communities. 

Making sense of lockdowns 

While it remains difficult to comprehend the magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic, the response of individuals provides a fascinating insight into the processes of sensemaking. Previous research focused on cases in which frameworks and practices pre-existed the crisis: by launching their research as the pandemic took hold, Murillo and Georgiou were able to explore the impact of an ongoing crisis with no such frameworks or pre-existing ties in place.  

In doing so, they identified the mechanisms that allowed societies to organize for resilience and the resulting sensemaking: widely shared and accepted cues and frames, simultaneous enactment of practices, embeddedness, visibility of actions, and sense of community.  

And, contrary to previous research that emphasizes the importance of shared values and beliefs, they revealed how these mechanisms enabled the resilience of social collectives in the absence of pre-existing connections.  

The findings indicate that the creation of a brand new sense of community is a socially desirable outcome in a context where social order collapses. Thus, new forms of solidarity emerge even when there is no physical presence associated nor even pre-existing social bonds other than geographical proximity. As the researchers conclude, the resilience built by the formation and endurance of social collectives in the absence of pre-existing processes is an area ripe for future research.