Government’s policies in response to the Covid-19 crises have varied from highly restrictive social distancing measures closing most public spaces to rather flexible ones. However, from the complex systems perspective, it is also important to consider the decentralized emergence of community’s practices in response to the pandemic. The present article discusses the emergence and dynamics of community resilience by empirically investigating the case of the favela of Paraisópolis in São Paulo, Brazil. We observe the emergence of innovative practices that initially contributed to significant lower infection and mortality rates than the city average. We then consider possible factor associated with increase in infection rates in the community after six months. Our analytical framework combines two conceptual perspectives in the study of complex systems. First, resilience in socio-ecological systems highlights adaptation processes characterized by an interplay of previous experience and emerging new knowledge (1). Second, the cultural milieu (2) represents the set of different stimulus functions that embed the acquisition and continuity of interlocking behavioral contingencies. We aim at contributing to the understanding of community resilience by identifying geographic, psychological and ecological factors (contextual variables) that facilitate responses to the pandemic. The elements of the descriptive analysis and an exploratory basic qualitative study are employed to understand how the community may have self-organized in this period. We analyze publicly available information through previous publication, research reports and media material to descriptively present objects and stimulus functions associated to three environments and thereby presenting an overview of cultural milieu at Paraisópolis. Second, we present qualitative accounts of emerging practices through interviews with community members, analysis of reports and media news. Findings demonstrate how previous experience with social problems facilitated self-organization and the emergence of innovative practices in the context of uncoordinated state policies in Brazil. The identification of cultural milieu factors may inform public health measures that facilitate and sustain self-organization at the community level.
References
[1] C. Folke, Resilience: The emergence of a perspective for social–ecological systems analyses. Global environmental change, 16(3) (2006). 253-267.
[2] J. Sánchez, R. Houmanfar, M. Alavosius, A Descriptive Analysis of the Effects of Weather Disasters on Community Resilience. Behavior and Social Issues, 28(1) (2019) 298-315.