ABSTRACT
Who to trust and rely on in times of a pandemic? This is the central question addressed by this book. The COVID-19 crisis is considered as an example; revealing relationships of trust and mistrust among the various players involved in the crisis and its mitigation: individuals, families, various types of social groups but also corporations or civil organizations, as well as state institutions at different levels – from the local to the national. This introductory chapter provides a general perspective on how the issue of trust is articulated in the local community in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It starts with a review of the onset of the COVID-19 from the emergence of the pandemic at the Wuhan Seafood Wholesale Market to its global spread and the varying measures taken by states to address the crisis. The intensity of the spread of COVID-19 infection has led to the lockdown of global cities and global mobility restrictions, the introduction of mask wearing, social distancing, mass nucleic acid testing and mass vaccination. In the second section, this chapter reflects on the scale of analysis and defines the range of local communities in our case studies that range from localized districts to slum settlements. The third section discusses the concepts of risk and varieties of trust that are interpreted and used in the various chapters. Finally, the introduction provides an outline of the key issues explored in the different chapters of the book.
