Local communities of care provide the alternative to biopolitical governmentality – they produce more neighborliness, appreciation of life, lower carbon-footprint, and stop the widening of inequalities

This paper has discussed how the new biopolitical governmentalities introduced under the COVID-19 regulations have affected communities at different levels. At the national level, community spirit was instrumentalised to confront the emergency by reinforcing national boundaries, flows of information and resources. There was a highly technocratic response in most countries. This celebration of the national community avoided the confrontation of other problems and silenced opposition as the inequalities generated by top-down imposed social isolation took a while to emerge. The growing body of evidence of widening inequalities both within and between communities (Cotofan et al., 2021; Bonacini et al., 2020) undermined the discourse of a national community where “we are all in it together”. The misery of dying alone in a care home, the explosive stress of locking up families for children and women and the compounded educational inequalities of keeping children out of school only emerged gradually once lockdowns ended. 13 C. Wallace et al. Governmentality Versus Community: The Impact of the COVID. At a micro level, locally spatialised communities were reinvented through necessity and often reinforced through self-help initiatives. Far from undermining spatialised relationships, digital media especially social media - tended to reinforce them as a response to emergency. Locality and place have become more important as a source social support. Online communications within localities have been used to mobilise community responses to the COVID emergency. Formal methods of mobilisation tended to build upon existing associations such as religious institutions, resilience infrastructure and mother-toddler groups, but informal responses were more haphazard and spontaneous. However, there was an eruption of community spirit around horizontal ties. In our view this was more than a form of governmentality at distance, but neither was it opposition or protest. It opened up a “space” for different lines of communication and some relief from the top-down governmentality. The forced turn towards localism during the first lockdown with radical lifestyle changes offered a glimpse into an alternative future that more neighbourliness, a slower pace of life, mindful appreciation of the surroundings and a low carbon foot- print could offer. Even if this was rapidly forgotten later, it allowed spaces to emerge in an otherwise the pervasive biopolitical governmentality.