Mutual Aid as Disaster Response in NYC: Hurricane Sandy to COVID-19

In the face of increasingly frequent climate crises, hazard and disaster studies, best practices stress the importance of social resilience and adaptation to changing conditions. Yet critical scholars remind us that the ability to adapt to change hinges on political and economic structures that create and contribute to existing social inequities, thus determining the amount and type of resources different communities can access in times of crisis. Traditional forms of aid from the state and elite funders can sometimes explicitly exclude those most in need of support based on citizen status or requirements around housing and substance use. Mutual aid, which is grounded in anarchist principles and strives to meet basic survival needs of people while delegitimizing harmful systems of injustice, presents an alternative way to understand and engage in disaster response. In New York City, mutual aid disaster responses were documented following Hurricane Sandy in the case of Occupy Sandy, an emergent network that grew from the organizing of Occupy Wall Street. In reaction to the COVID-19 pandemic, the practice of mutual aid received a new kind of global attention and acceptance into the mainstream. This commentary piece will provide a brief summary of mutual aid literature, followed by a case study of Occupy Sandy and an overview of the still evolving COVID-19 mutual aid practices in New York City and beyond. Finally, it will propose questions for further research in the context of the ongoing pandemic.