Community responses, amplified inequalities, and grassroots political engagement: theoretical and methodological reflections in the post-pandemic context and recommendations for future crises
Date: 04 and 05 September 2025
Format: In-person and online
Place: Universidad de Caldas (Manizales, Caldas, Colombia)
Objective
Analyse and exchange critical perspectives on post-pandemic recovery processes in transatlantic regions and to collectively reflect on emerging theories, lessons learned for future crises, and research methodologies, to summarize learnings and strengthen a horizon of global collaboration that prioritizes community resilience, social justice, and capacity building in contexts of interconnected crises.
Participants: Researchers affiliated with projects funded by the Transatlantic Platform (T-AP) for Social Sciences and Humanities.
Publication proposal
As a result of this event, a joint publication is proposed that will bring together academic papers written by the presenters of each thematic round table.
Once a proposal is accepted, an extended abstract will be requested to initiate the editorial process, aimed at publishing a special issue in an indexed journal or preparing a preliminary index for a collective volume.
For more information: voces.recuperacion@udecaldas.edu.co
Background
Five years after the COVID-19 pandemic was declared a public health emergency of international concern, Latin America and the world continue to face social, economic, political, and institutional challenges that were unveiled and deepened by the crisis. In the face of these challenges, the "Voices of Recovery: Recognizing Intersectional Risks, Capacities and Recovery Needs from the Covid 19 Pandemic in Marginalized Communities in Latin America" project, selected in the Transatlantic Platform (T-AP) Social Sciences and Humanities call for proposals "Recovery, Renewal and Resilience in a Post-Pandemic World (RRR)", has contributed to understanding the impacts and strengthening local and community networks in regions of Colombia, Peru, and Brazil.
Within the framework of the T-AP RRR call and the last virtual conference that brought together researchers from the funded projects, the Voices of Recovery team proposes a new space for dialogue through the international workshop "Community responses, amplified inequalities and political incidence from grassroots: theoretical and methodological reflections on the post-pandemic and recommendations for future crises". The workshop will take place in Manizales (Caldas, Colombia). However, if some participants cannot attend in person, the possibility of holding the event in an online format will be considered. In that case, certain sessions might be held via Zoom.
This event seeks to be a space for academic discussion, allow for a broader encounter and aims to integrate researchers' reflections on theoretical, methodological, and ethical considerations to generate critical, emergent, and transversal readings of post-pandemic challenges in marginalized contexts and in the face of future crises. This International Workshop offers the opportunity to connect and share research results in greater depth.
The participation of all project members is encouraged, especially early career researchers, to promote capacity building among more and less experienced researchers, and to foster more open and collaborative academic communities. Furthermore, the exchange of experiences and methodologies between projects will allow the identification of collaborations, good practices, and innovative strategies that can be adopted in other latitudes.
Thematic Roundtables
This thematic roundtable addresses community responses as fundamental processes for facing the pandemic crisis in marginalized contexts, with an emphasis on the deepening of collective care and nature-based initiatives, solidarity networks, community agencies, and social mobilization. It focuses on reflecting about the strategies, that emerged in response to the pandemic challenging traditional institutional practices and redefining the public from the everyday, emerge, are maintained, and have a political impact. It also questions the window of opportunity for these mobilizations which, depending on the context, may or may not transcend public dialogue and governance transformation. Finally, it interrogates the lessons learned from these experiences to addressing future global crises with approaches that prioritize inclusion and social justice.
1. Community recovery strategies, social mobilization, and bottom-up social transformations
Guiding questions:
● How have the relationships between the state and grassroots communities been transformed in the post-pandemic context, especially in terms of decentralized and inclusive governance?
● What lessons and recommendations can we draw from community responses and social mobilization for current and future overlapping crises?
● How have pre-existing inequalities influenced the capacity of communities to mobilize and transform during and after the pandemic?
2. Inequalities and vulnerabilities amplified by the pandemic (impacts of government’s management and its effects on marginalized populations)
The topics presented in this roundtable focus on the deepening of structural inequalities related to gender, age, ethnicity, class, migratory status, and rural/urban relations in pandemic management. It also seeks to reflect on the limitations and omissions of government’s responses to Covid-19 and how management measures during and after Covid-19 affected differently marginalized communities in the regions studied.
Guiding questions:
● How have public policies responded to the vulnerabilities of marginalized communities?
● What government strategies have been effective in reducing inequalities exacerbated by the pandemic?
● How can decentralized responses become models for more equitable management in current and future crises?
3. Gender and care work
This thematic roundtable contributes knowledge on topics related to care work in all its dimensions. From an intersectional perspective, we will investigate care work - paid (domestic work and the health sector) and unpaid (community networks and feminised care) - that sustains life, its relationship with nature and health systems, in a context of increased workload due to the collapse of healthcare and deepening crises.
At the same time, resistance and recovery strategies will be explored, both in precarious populations in institutional settings, and in community and nature care networks, analyzing their essential role as buffers against crises and their potential to redefine post-pandemic recovery models from a redistributive justice of care.
Guiding questions:
● How to transform these experiences into public policies that recognize care as a pillar of social production, without offloading responsibilities onto feminized bodies?
● What strategies have caregivers developed to cope with the vulnerabilities exacerbated by the pandemic?
● How can public policies support essential workers and ensure their well-being?
4. Methodologies
Guiding questions:
● What concrete mechanisms ensure that methodologies do not generate extractive research practices, and that they therefore succeed in giving lasting capacities back to communities? What are the political meanings of methodological approaches?
● What are the ethical principles that guide research, especially when working with precarious populations and in marginalized contexts? How do we ensure that research results are accessible and useful to participating communities, beyond traditional academic products?
Contributions to this thematic roundtable will focus on reflection on methodologies, approaches, research practices, and ethical considerations in the construction of transatlantic platform research. In addition, alternative forms of research will be discussed, with more inclusive, creative, collaborative, and equitable approaches that promote the exchange of knowledge among researchers, the collective construction of academic and community knowledge, the strengthening of capacities, and the transformation of social inequalities.
