Redes vecinales de apoyo y estrategias de afrontamiento en familias empobrecidas en Barcelona en tiempos de pandemia

Abstract

In Barcelona, most of impoverished families develop livelihood, coping and parenting strategies that incorporate, in addition to public services, neighbourhood networks of mutual support, thus increasing their capacity to secure material, relational and emotional resources for their children. Mutual support groups include social movements and local associations that fight for the right to housing in a self-organized way after the Covid-19 emergency. Based on cases in different districts of Barcelona, it is shown as with the support of inter-neighborhood networks, families gain agency that also gives them a sense of their own worth and dignity. By denouncing the violation of these families’ fundamental rights, personal failure and self-blame can be transformed into dynamics that organize and regenerate the social and community fabric, improving their quality of life and opening the range of possibilities to confront vulnerability.