Elisabetta Ferrari

Junior Budapest Open Society Fellow
Period of Stay: 
October 2026 – June 2027
2026/27
Building: 
Budapest, Nador u. 13
Discipline: 
Media and Communication
Institution: 
Independent Scholar PhD, University of Pennsylvania (2019) ,Italy
Project Title: 
Don’t Abandon Each Other: Mutual Aid Activism in the (Post)Pandemic
Project Abstract: 

The Covid-19 pandemic was met by an extraordinary mobilization of people who helped their communities by organizing for mutual aid. Mutual aid is a form of grassroots activism that fosters solidarity while helping people meet their basic needs (e.g. food). I examine mutual aid in/after the pandemic by investigating the experiences of activists across the United Kingdom, Italy, and the United States, three countries which saw the emergence of countless solidarity projects, organized through digital technologies. Through a unique comparative analysis based on digital ethnography and interviews with activists, I investigate how activists in these countries conceptualize mutual aid and negotiate the possibilities and limitations of digital technologies in supporting solidarity activism. The envisioned output, a scholarly monograph, will contribute interdisciplinary insights on the crucial and contested role of digital technology in shaping solidarity efforts, and on the importance of collective notions of care in responding to crises and emergencies.