Co-Productive Strategies and Grassroots Responses to COVID-19 Pandemic in Urban Settings of Zambia

Abstract This paper focuses on the systemic and grassroots response to the COVID-19 health crisis in the urban settings of Zambia. The research examines the cooperative strategies of local actors – traditional health practitioners, pastors and prophets of Pentecostal and Spirit-type churches and actors of non-governmental and state health organizations in addressing the COVID-19 crisis in Zambian urban settings of Lusaka and Livingstone. The paper explores the levels of perception and conceptualization of the disease held by local community authorities (cultural brokers) and explains how they may differ from state-orchestrated medical explanations and recommendations. The authors argue that local cultural epistemologies, which are activated in times of crisis, can be seen as co-productive strategies in the systemic and executive response to the COVID-19 pandemic.