Navigating the dilemmas of mutual aid

International student organising in Sydney during the Covid‐19 pandemic

Bibliographic Data

ID7784652
AuthorsKurt Iveson (0000-0002-2362-4743, The University of Sydney, corresponding author), Mark Riboldi (0000-0001-8241-604X, University of Technology Sydney)
Year2024
Volume62
Issue2
Pages233-247
Publication date2024-05-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Research (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1745-5863 • E-ISSN: 1745-5871
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1745-5871.12647
OpenAlexW4395009841
LanguageEN
Citations received5
References cited20

In 2020, thousands of international students found themselves stranded in Sydney, Australia, with the suspension of international travel and closure of borders. While many lost their livelihoods due to lockdowns, the Australian government excluded international students and other temporary visa holders from all forms of income support and disaster relief—resulting in food and housing insecurity and social isolation. This article describes and analyses the forms of mutual aid and support that international students organised to address their situation. In providing an account of their efforts, we consider them as forms of care infrastructure and draw particular attention to the institutional relationships that were involved: interfaces with faith, community and labour organising; confrontations with state agencies and the higher education sector; and institutionalisation into a formalised and state‐funded community organising initiative—the Oz International Student Hub. We examine the evolution of these relationships as responses to a series of strategic dilemmas, as students sought simultaneously to care for one another and to confront the forces that produced their precarity and isolation. And we draw out a series of lessons we can learn from their efforts about how mutual aid can avoid the pitfalls of charity and state welfare, while institutionalising more durable political spaces that do not have to be invented anew with each fresh crisis

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Geography · Mutual aid · Pandemic · Political science · Sociology · Disaster Management and Resilience · Disaster Response and Management · Law · Medicine · Tourism, Volunteerism, and Development · Virology

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