Keeping an open venue and working face to face during the Covid-19 outbreak: challenges for civil society organizations working with people living precarious lives in Sweden

ABSTRACT

This article examines how representatives of Swedish civil society organisations (CSOs) reflected on and acted to provide daily functional social work to people living precarious lives during the early phase (March-April 2020) of the Covid-19 pandemic in Sweden. The empirical material consists of 20 qualitative interviews with representatives of CSOs. The results highlight how the CSOs, and their venues, constituted a safe place where visitors were considered grievable and that working face-to-face with the visitors was deemed necessary. However, the pandemic posed challenges for how the CSOs were used to organise their social work, while many visitors lacked other alternatives. When Covid-19 hit, it meant adapting and responding to deliver well-functioning social work and a place for people lacking other alternatives despite the pandemic. The measures taken implied possible challenges to the relationship between the CSOs and their visitors. Still, there were indications that the visitors saw the measures as a protection, as rituals of grievability. However, not all measures were welcomed by the representatives or visitors. Turning people away or prioritising among visitors were challenging and cannot always be said to frame people as grievable. Regardless, it seems that the challenging measures taken during the pandemic were already embedded in everyday practices where the visitors were treated relationally and considered grievable before the pandemic. This embeddedness made it possible to extend grievability throughout the pandemic, even when social distancing measures were used, thus emphasising the importance of places of grievability being accessible to people before societal crises occur.

KEYWORDS:

• Covid-19
• Civil society organizations
• infection control measures
• face-to-face interaction
• social work

Introduction

They’re mainly worried that [our venues] will close. They have nowhere else to go, and then their primary question is: “Where should we go?” (Marie, leader at a CSO, Malmö)

In the present article, we examine how representatives of Swedish civil society organizations (CSOs) reflected on and acted to provide daily functional social work to people living precarious lives during the early phase (March-April 2020) of the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden. During this phase, the authorities issued new guidelines and rules regarding how people and organizations should act. Social distancing and constantly minimizing the number of people gathering¹ became challenging, especially because face-to-face interaction was highly valued among the CSOs we encountered as part of their daily social work efforts with people living precarious lives. The restrictions forced the organizations to reflect on their everyday social work and to quickly adapt to the new situation to meet the service users’ needs.

The empirical material consists of 20 qualitative interviews with representatives of CSOs working to provide social services to people living precarious lives in the cities of Malmö and Gothenburg (approximately 330,000 and 600,500 inhabitants, respectively). The organizations work with homeless people, migrants (‘EU migrants’, asylum seekers, irregular migrants, and ‘unaccompanied’ minors), and people in need of food, security, housing, or other kinds of social services. Most of the CSOs consist of staff and volunteers, with a few exceptions in which everyone was volunteering. In the interviews, we asked the representatives to tell us about their social work efforts during the pandemic breakout.

Many of the people who were in contact with CSOs lived under, what we call, precarious living conditions. These people lacked fundamental social rights, such as stable housing, financial support, full access to medical treatment, education, or other civil rights (Sveriges Stadsmissioner 2018). Moreover, they were often in a social situation that might make it challenging to follow social distancing rules and, sometimes, to receive information, leaving them to experience the full effects of a societal crisis early on. Therefore, how the CSOs adapted and kept their social work efforts going during the crisis was of fundamental importance to this group of people.

The present article aims to examine the CSOs’ experiences from, and reflections on, providing daily well-functioning social work during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic. We pose the following research questions:

• What challenges did the representatives identify when trying to maintain what is, in their mind, functional social work during Covid-19?

• How did the organizations respond to the pandemic so as to continue meeting the needs of service users?

By answering these questions, we can, although only tentatively, also get some indications of the extent to which the CSOs accepted or resisted pandemic measures posed by the state.

Doing this type of research is essential, as people who are deeply affected by structures of social injustice and inequality are most often the ones who are also severely affected by societal crises such as pandemics and disasters (Bauman 2011; Uscher-Pines et al. 2007). For example, Zygmunt Bauman (2011), when writing about the consequences of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana in 2005, quotes Martin Espada, an English professor at the University of Massachusetts. Espada says: ‘We tend to think of natural disasters as somehow even-handed, as somehow random. Yet, it has always been thus: poor people are in danger’ (p. 6). Other researchers have drawn similar conclusions about natural disasters and pandemics (Dyson 2006; Fortuna et al. 2020; Mills 1986; Uscher-Pines et al. 2007). Statistics from the COVID-19 pandemic show that, in Sweden, low-income earners and people with low education ran a significantly higher risk of dying due to COVID-19 than did people with a higher income and higher education (Örstadius 2021).

Of significant importance to this article is that state-governed social work in Sweden, as in other nations (Ferguson and Woodward 2017), has seen substantial changes since at least the mid-1980s. During this time and forward, new public management and market adaptations were implemented, contributing to a situation of decreased promotion of social justice (Herz and Lalander 2018; Kamali and Jönsson 2018; Ferguson and Woodward 2017). This dismantling of social work has, for instance, resulted in less relationship-based work and thus fewer and shorter face-to-face encounters between municipal social workers and service users in the context of social work (Lindahl 2019; Ministry of Social Affairs 2016). One consequence of this development is that today’s state-governed or municipal social work often lacks knowledge of, resources, relationships, and trust within the local communities (Öhlund 2016). As a result, civil society, as a whole, has had to take on more responsibility for people’s social welfare, which is often especially important for people living precarious lives.

This reorganization and transfer of responsibility also entail the increased precariousness of social work, as CSOs often tend to work under uncertain financial and social conditions (Herz 2016). But the reorganization and transfer of responsibility may also be interpreted as a possible strength during crises (like the pandemic). CSOs may, for instance, act more quickly than authorities and publicly employed social workers, who are typically specialized and work for organizations characterized by much more sluggish decision-making (cf. Harding 2012).

Because the pandemic posed challenges to how many CSOs were used to organizing their social work, which involved working relationship-based and face-to-face to build relationships, and because many people lacked other alternatives, we argue that it is crucial to try to understand how the CSOs were able to keep working during the pandemic.

In the present article, the research participants have identified at least two critical conditions for the CSOs’ social work that were challenged during the pandemic: first, their ability to maintain face-to-face interaction and relationships with service users, and second, their ability to keep a place or a location – their venues – open for people to meet and for the organizations to meet with people. In our interviews, these conditions were commented on by all the interviewees. Before returning to the empirical data, we will present our theoretical perspective and the method used in the present article.

Face-to-face grievability in certain places

Theoretically, we are interested in three concepts aligned with what the CSO representatives identified as challenging. First, the CSOs all meet with people living in precariousness, and much of their work concerns helping to reframe their visitors such that they become, in the words of Judith Butler (2009), grievable. Second, we outline a theoretical perspective on face-to-face interaction. Finally, we add a discussion on place, as the venues used by the CSOs turned out to be extremely important to the social work conducted.

Judith Butler (2009) argues that some lives are not counted as lives and, thus, not worth caring for. Using the term grievability, Butler captures the process underlying what causes some lives to be considered expendable and, therefore, impossible to grieve. Ungrievable lives are not considered lives worth living. The framing of lives is especially important within this process, that is, how particular lives are being discussed, categorized, or formulated discursively and in day-to-day interaction/practice. Framing is used in two senses: both to refer to framing a painting – it implicitly steers our gaze towards what we ought to see, and to refer to us being framed – it does not show us the entire picture. As such, we can work to reframe the picture to change our sense of reality. The concepts of grievability and reframing have been used to visualize how some groups of people are considered less worthy than others owing to stigmatization, categorization, construction of laws and other processes, implicitly affecting their possibility to receive help (cf. Cover 2012). In social work research, the concept has been used to describe how social workers can work within specific frames and actively work to reframe people into grievability (cf. Björngren Cuadra 2015). Butler (2009) also argues that an individual’s grievability is preceded by the recognition of their precariousness. As such, we must first recognize that all people are precarious before we can reframe them as grievable.

Face-to-face situations are of great importance in understanding relational social work. In such cases, people find themselves co-present in time and space as they direct their respective attention and social responses to each other (Goffman 1967). Berger and Luckmann (1966/1987, 43) write:

In the face-to-face situation the other is appresented to me in a vivid present shared by both of us. […] Every expression of mine is oriented towards him, and vice versa, and this continuous reciprocity of expressive acts is simultaneously available to both of us. This means that, in the face-to-face situation, the other’s subjectivity is available to me through a maximum of symptoms.

It should be evident that social work distanced from people living precarious lives will find it hard to create this exchange of subjectivity in ‘interaction rituals’ (cf. Goffman 1967). Such rituals may, following Butler, include elements to reframe stigmatized people in precarity or who in other ways are not made visible in society such that they become grievable. However, such an exchange of subjectivity and transfer of emotions can be threatened during a pandemic like COVID-19 because of the decrees to avoid face-to-face situations altogether or to enact them (at a distance, not shaking hands or hugging, etc.) without spreading the virus.

Meeting face-to-face often requires a place, which is also threatened during a pandemic when social distancing is prescribed. Place has always played a crucial role in social work, not least in community work (see Fischer et al. 2020). Bryant and Williams (2020) also point out how the locality, the street and neighbourhoods have had a specific position as points of intervention in social work. Thus, place and social work are deeply intertwined.

In line with Doreen Massey (2005), we consider places to be produced, not given or consistent but relational. Places consist of venues that are produced and upheld both socially and materially. They are also, as argued by Bryant and Williams (2020), connected to affect and sensory experiences, as well as to senses of belonging (and non-belonging), identity, and attachments. Places are not equally accessible but rather the opposite. Places can be bought, contested, and claimed by different actors.

On the one hand, place is, as such, a commodity affected by neoliberal logic. This is particularly evident in housing markets, but also regarding who is welcomed or given the right to a place within different borders that define cities, countries, Europe and other places on earth (cf. Holgersson 2011). On the other hand, place can also be organized relationally to create a social setting for grievability. As with face-to-face meetings, a place can potentially be framed so that people feel more or less ‘at home’ or grievable by others (cf. Butler 2009).

The present article, as mentioned, deals with how representatives of CSOs working in close face-to-face contact with people living precarious lives talked about and reflected on those encounters and situations during the initial phase of the pandemic. Place had a prominent position in these reflections and conversations. Much of the worries expressed by representatives of CSOs can be related to where people could be or where people should go as well as where and how social relations can be built and manifested in a grievable way. We believe that the importance of face-to-face situations and of having a place to meet became more evident when these places and relationships were interpreted as threatened and, thus, reflected on.

Method

The present article originates from two research projects. One focuses on the social dimensions of hope in the asylum process, and the other on suffering and resistance among Swedish volunteers and young migrants. In those projects, we developed a social network of people engaged in CSOs working with migrants who live precarious lives in the cities of Gothenburg and Malmö, Sweden. We were also involved in an already established network with several CSOs working for social justice in the respective cities. These contacts made it relatively easy to quickly reach out to CSOs and conduct interviews on whether and how they were affected by the pandemic outbreak and its consequences. The CSO representatives all have experience working with people living precarious lives and know-how concerning how to cope with complex and challenging situations.

We conducted the 20 interviews during March and April 2020, following an interview guide that included three major themes: 1. The main organizational tasks and how they usually accomplish them, 2. How the pandemic affects or threatens the participants’ work, 3. How the participants and their organizations cope with the pandemic. We tried to make the interviews feel relaxed, the goal being to encourage the participants to talk and develop their thoughts.

The length of the interviews was between 30 and 60 minutes, and they were transcribed verbatim. At the beginning of the empirical phase, the interviews were conducted face-to-face because there were no restrictions at the time. As the official recommendations became more distinct, we decided to switch to mediated interaction (phone calls or audio-visual media, such as Zoom and FaceTime), which, we claim, resulted in data of sufficient quality.

All names and organizations have been anonymized. We have read all the material, taken notes, and extracted themes that have emerged from the material. We then re-read the material several times, focusing on the meaning and importance of the previously identified themes, that is, place in relation to face-to-face situations and how these are described as related to the COVID-19 restrictions. Furthermore, we have searched for patterns, nuances, and contradictions (Kvale, 2007).

The organizations represent different kinds of CSOs. Some are religious, others are self-organized, some have a contract with the municipality to provide some social services to the public, and others manage through donations, funding, or memberships. As mentioned, all CSOs, with a few exceptions, had hired staff and volunteers. A few CSOs consisted only of volunteers, which theoretically could make them even more vulnerable during a pandemic. Among these CSOs, a genuine concern, especially regarding the elderly volunteers, was that the volunteers would not be able to work as planned or not be allowed to work at all. Despite these differences, the organizations struggled with similar challenges and were able to find alternative solutions to these challenges to varying degrees.

There are ethical issues that must be taken into consideration. Some people in contact with the CSOs are not permitted by the authorities to stay in Sweden, and the information revealed may jeopardize these people and organizations. We have discussed such issues with the representatives of the organizations in the event they have been disclosed during the interviews, making sure not to reveal any information that could endanger the people or organizations.

In the following, we focus on the two most common challenges identified by the representatives, related to the importance of their venues and face-to-face situations. We then discuss how the CSOs respond to the COVID-19 situation so that they can proceed with their work while adhering to the rules of social distancing. We end with a concluding discussion.

The importance of social venues and face-to-face interaction

When interviewing the representatives of CSOs, it quickly became evident how vital their venues were. The venues may, for example, be used for handing out food, a forum for consultation and information, or communicating with authorities. They may also be places for pupils to do homework (with help from volunteers and staff), provide technical equipment, such as computers, or provide physical exercise and leisure activities. The central aspect, however, is that they are places people visit and that they provide a secure place for people lacking in social and economic security. The venues are places for face-to-face interaction, relationships, and trust-building, both between staff and visitors and between the visitors themselves. According to the staff, visitors highly valued these venues because they were often stigmatized and excluded from other places, such as shopping malls, public parks, and train stations. Their visitors were not seen as grievable in the same sense as other people. Below, we furnish some examples of the importance of venues provided by the CSOs, especially during the pandemic.

When the senior high schools in Sweden closed on 18 March 2020, some pupils were cramped up in overcrowded apartments, while others lived in housing accommodations without a space of their own. This was especially the case for young people who lacked other social networks or even a family in Sweden. For these young people, the CSOs had been able to provide a place to be where they could do their homework and get extra tuition. However, COVID-19 meant adapting to the increasing demand for such safe places and the new rules following the pandemic. Ulrika, the founder of an organization working with unaccompanied young people, told us the following:

Now, around 50 young people visit every day. We’ve increased the capacity because they’ve closed the senior high school and the adult education to conduct teaching instead remotely, and that’s made it hard for many young people to retrieve information, understand what they’re supposed to do, they’ve needed a lot of help with that.

Being in a situation where it is difficult to stay in your accommodation or apartment and gain access to and understand important information may make keeping up with schoolwork challenging during a pandemic. The CSO referred to above provided social support, education, job search, and help in communicating with authorities and finding somewhere to live. This work was mainly done face-to-face, in the interaction between visitors, staff, and volunteers. Clearly, especially for these young people, the closing of schools resulted in an even greater need for somewhere to be and somewhere to get help, putting pressure on the CSO to keep providing such a place even during the pandemic.

A place to be is also essential to people who lack permanent housing or a home. Mira, working at a service centre for young people with a migrant background, told us how their regular visitors’ lives became increasingly precarious during the pandemic. She explained that many ‘regulars’ moved between different accommodations, making it even harder to find a place to sleep during the pandemic and that people were more careful about offering a room to another person due to official advice and recommendations as well as the risk of infection. Some representatives further told us that the CSOs’ venues were needed more than ever, but also severely affected by the pandemic and the restrictions imposed by the authorities.

Consequently, the CSOs had to navigate between stricter restrictions and their target groups’ increasing needs for a place to be. The CSOs also testified that certain groups of people already living precarious lives risked paying a high price during the pandemic. They lack access to various resources, such as a safe and calm home, technical equipment, and different types of social and economic support that would potentially protect them from certain risks. For these people, the places provided by the CSOs became especially important.

People living precarious lives need and get used to the CSOs’ venues. This is evident when the representatives talked about these people as ‘regulars’, indicating that some visitors often return to the venues provided by CSOs. Marie, from a Christian organization, told us that they heard the visitors’ concerns at the beginning of the outbreak:

[T]hey’re mainly worried that [we] ‘ll close. They have nowhere else to go, so their primary question is: “Where should we go?” [EU-migrants] can come here and feel completely secure […] sometimes it’s enough to have someone who cares, somebody who talks, listens, sees and hears you.

This quote highlights the value of a welcoming place. Marie also told us that their visitors, consisting of ‘EU migrants’, have experiences of being treated poorly by people in public places and that many are used to racial slurs, being spat on, and even physical violence (see Dahlstedt, Härnbro, and Vesterberg 2018). Hence, the venue provided by the CSO can be understood as a safe place. Marie evidently also considered the relational aspect and face-to-face encounters necessary for their work with the visitors.

The value of face-to-face interaction is evident in how, according to Marie, the social atmosphere at the venue creates possibilities for other feelings (security) than those experienced outside (insecurity) (cf. Bryant and Williams 2020). People visiting the venue moved from an insecure public space to a secure, welcoming venue. Marie told us what one man told her: ‘this is the only time during the day when I get here, and the staff are present, that someone looks me in the eye’. This statement indicates the man’s sensitivity to other people’s gazes. The man experiences how people generally do not look him in the eye. Marie’s statement can thus be interpreted to mean that the visitors to this CSO need and value the face-to-face encounters with the staff and other visitors and that the place provided creates feelings of safety. The place can be interpreted as somewhere people who, in the public space, are framed as expandable become reframed by being seen as whole human beings worth grieving for (Butler 2009). The CSOs work to fill a void in care for this group. Against this backdrop, we can understand why, during the pandemic, the ‘regulars’ expressed a profound concern that venues that were acknowledging their needs might have to close.

Two other stigmatized groups exposed to exclusionary practices by the Swedish government and social authorities are ‘unaccompanied’ and ‘undocumented’ migrants (Elsrud and Lalander 2022). These groups of people were affected by harsher Swedish and European migration policies after the ‘refugee crisis’ in 2015. Some of these people decided to stay in Sweden after receiving their final rejection from the Swedish Migration Agency, and they were thus hiding from the authorities. The Swedish authorities search for people in hiding, not for reasons of humanity or solidarity, but to put them in custody pending deportation. Given this situation of extreme precariousness and insecurity (see Elsrud 2020; Herz, Lalander, and Elsrud 2022), the CSOs and their venues have become especially important to these human beings in need of protection. Isabelle volunteered at a small CSO supporting young undocumented migrants. Together with another CSO, they provide a venue for these people. She told us the following:

Some of these youths aren’t welcomed everywhere, they’re youth nobody wants by their side, and nobody wants them to hang around, not in a shopping mall, not there. They are bothersome. So, this is the only place they’re able to feel confirmed, appreciated, seen. They’re able to talk, don’t need to take things into account, they can be themselves and relax.

Providing a venue for protection but also a place where young people can be themselves may be interpreted as a way for the CSOs to help reframe these young people from being unwanted to being welcomed, from being dehumanized to being humanized (Butler 2009). The work done by the CSOs can be interpreted as an attempt to reframe their visitors as grievable and their venues as places for grievability. If this is true, it would clarify why the venues and the face-to-face encounters seemed to be so important to the CSOs and their visitors.

As previously mentioned, Butler (2009) also argues that individuals’ grievability is preceded by recognition of their precariousness. Linda, working with young ‘unaccompanied’ migrants in a small self-organized organization, comes close to this way of reasoning when she tells us the following:

Their precariousness is extensive. They don’t exist in the system except that they should be deported. They’re exposed in all ways, and even when it comes to the rights they have, like the right to medical care, those rights aren’t that obvious to them, and unfortunately, they often need help to actually take advantage of these rights.

This type of recognition is shared by many of the CSO representatives. It implies taking a critical stance on the authorities and politically created structures that make life highly precarious for the ‘regulars’. It further suggests the strong commitment and engagement shared by many representatives. Linda said she ‘must do something for people who are so damaged’. Thus, she decided to provide what she could offer and started organizing herself along with others who also wanted to ‘do something’ without getting paid. Many representatives’ strong commitment is probably of great value in shaping face-to-face situations and filling these places with emotional content.

In this section, we have seen that the venues play a significant role for the CSOs and their visitors as places for grievability, that is, places where individuals can feel safe and be confirmed as precarious and grievable human beings. When COVID-19 hit, it meant adapting and finding strategies to deliver well-functioning social work despite the pandemic. In the next section, we present how the CSOs responded and adapted to the pandemic situation and how these responses may be related to place, face-to-face interaction and the phenomenon of grievability.

Managing places for grievability

The research participants told us they developed quick responses to the COVID-19 situation. Per, working at a Christian organization, told us:

We have very short decision paths, and we’re used to it. It’s part of our identity to make quick decisions, and our mission is to be close to where the people are, meet the needs that society does not meet, and adapt with flexibility.

Most of our interviewees expressed this mission of being close to people in need. The research participants bore witness to the different and shifting rules and recommendations from the authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. The situation meant constantly and rapidly introducing various infection control measures to their visitors. These measures included washing hands often, staying at home if one had symptoms (when a home was available), trying not to be too close to each other, and avoiding body contact.

Anna, from a small CSO, told us that more people than usual were visiting a church where they distribute bread. She believed the reason was an effect of other places closing due to the pandemic. She told us how they had to take measures to prevent the spread of the virus by installing basins outside (for hygienic purposes), dividing the bread queue (to keep social distance), and putting tape on the floor (to reduce body contact). These measures may be interpreted using Erving Goffman’s (1959/1974, 32) concept of ‘“the setting”, involving furniture, décor, physical layout, and other background items’. The setting and how people act in relation to it create specific impressions. Anna and her colleagues did not know how their visitors would react when confronted with the changes in setting and feared that the visitors would feel uncomfortable. Anna explained to us that this did not happen, however. Instead, the visitors appreciated the measures, as they were interpreted as having been put in place to protect them from getting the virus.

The preventive work described above, including the provision of information, was arranged by many of the CSOs. Some even provided medical staff who visited the venues to inform visitors and answer their questions. These information meetings did not only play a crucial role in preventing the virus from spreading, but they were also social settings that can be interpreted as rituals for grievability – meetings where specialists directed their attention and concern towards the visitors by informing them about how to avoid getting sick.

However, some CSOs started to avoid physical contact between individuals altogether. This had a significant effect on the relational aspects of the social work provided, as evident, for instance, in greeting rituals. Aina, working at a venue for homeless young people, told us:

Aina: Almost all young people get at least one or two hugs every night or morning, and we had to stop that. It feels terrible […] we don’t shake hands, and […] we try to keep a distance.

Interviewer: Have you replaced hugging with something else?

Aina: We sometimes greet with an elbow, and sometimes we have a laugh and say: ‘Well, you know, you’re not supposed to hug me today’. Joke about it, kind of.

In a pandemic situation, a hug can be interpreted as a lack of care rather than a loving greeting. At least temporarily, the pandemic framed the hug differently than before. We argue that the sudden lack of hugs and physical closeness can be grasped and managed partly because of the pandemic context. Physical proximity should be avoided, but a sense of closeness already exists at the venue. The ‘regulars’ probably know that people at the CSO consider them grievable human beings, making the absence of physical closeness and hugs easier to deal with. Instead, they use humour and laughter to maintain social bonds at the venues. Thus, avoiding physical contact does not have to reduce the intimacy of the relationship, especially if the relationship existed before the forced change in greeting rituals and because the actors in the encounters are aware that a hug may spread the virus.

Thus far, we have described responses to the virus and how new rules and regulations were affecting the CSOs, though seemingly without threatening existing social bonds between CSO representatives and visitors. What might be interpreted as creating a distance is, for some reason, instead considered an act of tenderness. The visitors appeared to have seen the measures as protection, proof that their lives are valuable and worth protecting. The measures or rituals for preventing the spread of COVID-19 can, as such, be interpreted as rituals for grievability (cf. Butler 2009). It can be argued that this setting and the new rituals helped to reframe the lives of otherwise stigmatized and excluded human beings as precarious lives worth caring and grieving for. Creating a distance became, somewhat paradoxically, an indicator of human value.

One thing that theoretically could threaten this relational social work concerns how, during the initial phase of the COVID-19 pandemic, having many people in the same room was seen as a risk. In response, some CSOs began using public places, such as nearby parks, squares, or street corners. Antonio, the leader of a youth organization, expressed his thoughts about how they could continue their work after having to close their venue, which is located in a stigmatized area of the city:

Now, we’ve closed down the venue […] But, one thing we do, we know there are many young people in vulnerable situations, and we’re out in the area [with them], we know their movements, may be in dialogue with them. So, we’re still out there doing things with them.

Through strong commitment, a history of building relationships locally, and solid knowledge about the young people in the neighbourhood, the organization representatives could keep up their social work efforts by moving to the streets. Walking around in the local area was one way to maintain social relations, but, as we would like to argue, this change was also possible because of already-established relationships. Some young leaders in the organization grew up in the area, meaning they have local knowledge from the area and know and are known by many people in the area. This embodied knowledge and experience seem to be critical in helping the CSO maintain and continue building social relationships even when forced to move outdoors.

Like the rituals with the ‘regulars’ above, this embodied local knowledge visualizes the importance of time and place when talking about rituals for grievability. It seems as if existing relationships and understanding of a place can be built on during a pandemic so as to, relatively rapidly and at least partly, overcome possible obstacles created by the pandemic. Such potential challenges might otherwise be suddenly changing places of interaction without disturbing the proximity and the mutual exchange of emotion included in the relationship.

In this section, we have described and discussed how the CSOs dealt with the pandemic while at the same time continuing their daily social work efforts within the organizations. Interestingly, even if the strategies often implied creating more physical distance between individuals, something considered a challenge for the organizations and their ‘target groups’, we see examples of how, in the pandemic context, already established social relations seemed to survive despite being challenged. What might be considered to create a distance can be regarded as rituals for grievability, in that it recognizes people’s inherent precarity (Butler 2009), in this case their vulnerability regarding the pandemic.

Challenging grievability

However, not all measures are welcomed by the representatives or visitors. These measures were considered challenging, whether already in place or possibly planned for the future. One example is when CSOs had to reduce the number of people visiting their venues by prioritizing among the visitors. Laurie, a representative of a small organization, told us the following:

We’re closed. Our door used to be open, some mornings every week. Back then, many people used to visit, also [people] living with social vulnerability or homelessness. [I] realize that it used to be many people at once. Now the door is closed and only open to […] people primarily sleeping outside and who need to do laundry or shower. We let them in a couple at a time.

As with the youth organization referred to in the previous section, this organization, mainly serving homeless and vulnerable people, also had to keep its venue closed. Some activities were no longer possible to carry out, while others had to be adapted to the new reality. Regardless of their attempts and their solid commitment to being there for the target group, it is evident that the organizations also had to turn people down. People with access to somewhere to sleep were no longer able to visit. Instead, the organization had to focus solely on people experiencing homelessness. By being forced to differentiate between people who could and could not visit the CSO, the previously welcoming environment risked becoming unwelcoming to some people. People who were turned down were no longer being framed as grievable enough, but had to care for themselves or find help elsewhere.

Another example is how it became evident during the interviews that many dreaded a possible future with even harsher rules and regulations should the pandemic continue and worsen. To prepare for this, many CSOs discussed whether replacing face-to-face interaction with mediated interaction using cell phones and social media would become necessary. Such a scenario was, however, generally considered problematic. Zora, who works at an organization for undocumented young people, said this means that they:

[w]ould lose opportunities to properly reassure ourselves about [the young people’s] mood. Even if we can talk by phone, where you can perceive a person’s mood in their voice, it’s not the same as seeing them in person. And besides, I can’t imagine their precariousness, not being guaranteed care, living as crowded as they do, the fear this may mean.

Zora expressed the importance of embodiment and using all of one’s senses and feelings when encountering other people. This position is relatable to Berger and Luckmann’s view on the face-to-face situation, where (Berger and Luckmann 1966/1987, 43): ‘the other’s subjectivity is available to me through a maximum of symptoms’. Zora also highlighted how the recognition of precariousness and grievability are central to the work this organization tries to provide.

Other representatives of CSOs had experiences similar to Zora’s. Anna, for instance, talked about how she saw an ‘incredible challenge’ associated with a possible shift from face-to-face to mediated encounters, because she considers physical proximity the organization’s essential tool. Helena, from the same CSO, told us: ’[T]he social interaction is essential, to get to a place where you meet with others, where you’re part of a bigger relationship and part of a group’. When those in need lack support, social networks, and close relationships, the CSOs and their venues are especially important in building and maintaining relationships with others. There was an apparent fear among the representatives that not being able to continue to provide a place with face-to-face and embodied encounters might negatively affect not only the social work provided by the CSO, but also their visitors.

In this section, we have discussed how some measures taken or debated by the CSOs cannot always be said to have framed people as grievable. Having to turn people away, either entirely or physically (face-to-face), is a signal of rejection rather than of grievability. We have also discussed how mediated interaction, compared with immediate face-to-face interaction, may threaten mutual transfers of emotion. In the concluding section, we analyse and discuss the results of our study.

Discussion

People visiting CSOs are already suffering from social injustices. Some must hide from the welfare state, and others live with scarce financial resources. Some live in overcrowded apartments or lack a home altogether. Others suffer from racial and social stigmatization. Regardless, the CSOs and their venues seemed to be valued by their visitors because they provided an alternative to harsh reality by constituting a safe place where the visitors were seen as grievable and met face-to-face as human beings. The venues become places of grievability (cf. Butler 2009). This is evidenced by the fact that many people kept returning to the same CSO, becoming ‘regulars’ to the staff and the volunteers.

However, the pandemic seemed to threaten these venues and the face-to-face and relational social work the CSOs conducted. Working face-to-face with groups of people, sometimes completely lacking other social contexts, was highly valued by the CSOs (and their visitors) as an essential part of their everyday work. Having access to a place to be – i.e. the CSOs’ venues, which were used not only to provide specific social services but also, perhaps more importantly, to build and maintain face-to-face relationships – was thus crucial to being able to provide social support. Because many measures and recommendations from the authorities about handling the pandemic aimed to limit face-to-face interaction and keep a distance, the CSOs faced a challenge. Despite this, and perhaps somewhat surprisingly, the CSOs seemed to generally accept the pandemic measures issued by the state. In response to the pandemic, most CSOs were able to modify their work and interaction with visitors while still doing what they consider functional and supportive social work for people living precarious lives.

It might be considered somewhat paradoxical that even measures of distancing seemed to be regarded by the visitors as a ritual of grievability. By rituals for grievability, we are referring to a type of social interaction that can constitute a reframing of otherwise stigmatized individuals living precarious lives – social interaction that provides a feeling that one is living a valuable life worth protecting (cf. Butler 2009). An important factor affecting why measures of distancing did not seem to disturb the relationships more is that these rituals were built on already present relationships between staff and their ‘target groups’. This appears to be in line with previous research emphasizing that trust from, relationships with, and knowledge about the local communities are essential factors for CSOs’ social work efforts (Öhlund, 2016) and are what often separates them from state-based social work. The venues and face-to-face situations that came to be challenged during the pandemic were already embedded in everyday practices, where the visitors were treated relationally and considered grievable prior to the pandemic. This embeddedness made it possible to extend grievability throughout the pandemic, even when social distancing measures had to be used. Another factor is that the pandemic context enabled other interpretations of, for example, ‘infection measures’ and new, distant ways of a greeting than existed before the outbreak. Hugging might be interpreted as something that conveys care and appreciation. Still, as an effect of the pandemic, it became dangerous as a way of spreading disease – as such, not hugging became a way of showing respect and care.

There are three other potential critical factors underlying why most CSOs seem to have handled the pandemic as well as they did. These factors align with previous research on CSOs (Herz 2016; Harding 2012). First, there is the strong commitment and engagement shared by many representatives. We argue that this has been essential in shaping face-to-face situations, filling the venues with emotional content, and adapting the relationships and venues during the pandemic. Second, there is the relational history often evident among the CSOs; their staff and volunteers seem to have been able to maintain continuity they had pre-pandemic into the pandemic. Knowing and being known in a place and knowing people within that context seem to have been of great importance to the CSOs’ social work during the pandemic. Third, they were able to respond quickly and adapt, which often separates CSOs from state-based social work efforts, which are affected by bureaucracy and slow decision paths (ibid.).

However, one thing that is impossible to know based on these results is how people lacking a historical connection to the venues and the CSOs experienced these measures, that is, the non-regulars who may already have lacked a sense of grievability pre-pandemic but who, during the pandemic, needed the kind of support only provided by the CSOs. It is possible that they fell away entirely or that they did not appreciate the measures taken by the CSOs. From other fields of research, we can see that people lacking that kind of historical connection experienced the pandemic and the measures following it much harder than those who already had an established relationship with the institution or place in question. One example is that young people living alone with fewer caring responsibilities perceived changes in their work and private life more negatively than did those with more experience, a partner or family, and more caring responsibilities (see Tušl et al. 2021).

Regardless, this only emphasizes the importance of places of grievability being accessible to people from the very beginning: before societal crises occur. The reason the CSO representatives kept emphasizing the importance of meeting face-to-face and providing a place for groups of people who live precarious lives is that there is a shortage of such places, sometimes even homes, for these people. It has been argued that municipal (state-governed) social work in Sweden has a hard time living up to its statutory responsibilities because it lacks the local community connections needed for relationship-based social work, both as regards preventive work and as regards being able to act when sudden structural changes occur (cf. 2020, 47). It has also been argued that the relational aspects of social work have generally, as Pamela Trevithick (2003) once put it, fallen out of favour. But what the present article shows is how vital the relationship-based aspects of social work and the local connections to people and places are to being able to overcome critical challenges, such as a pandemic, together.

Ethical review

Ethical approval for the projects was given by the Regional Ethics Review Board in Lund, Sweden, Reg. No. 2018/138–31.

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank the representatives and the organizations for their participation and Karen Williams for proofreading the manuscript. We would also like to thank the anonymous reviewers who helped us improve the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by The Swedish Research Council [grant number 2017-01562] and MUCF, Swedish Agency for Youth and Civil Society [grant number 0720/18].

Notes

1. First to 50, later to 10 people, and then again to 8 or fewer, depending on the facilities.