Salir Adelante: Social capital and resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic in Argentina

The Covid-19 pandemic has stimulated new appraisals of how social cohesion, including neighborhood-level social capital, fosters resilience in the face of crisis. Several studies suggest better health outcomes in neighborhoods with higher level of social capital, in general and during the pandemic. Building on a growing body of research which suggests that those who live in close-knit neighborhoods have fared better during the pandemic, this article analyzes how social capital influences individual and collective perceptions and attitudes about the experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic in Tucumán, Argentina. To assess this question, we used a mixed-methods approach, combining focus groups, semi-structured interviews, and an online survey (n = 701 respondents) conducted in September 2021. We find widespread experiences of resilience in response to the Covid-19 pandemic, in spite of difficult socioeconomic conditions and perceived poor government performance. Results from logistic regression analysis indicate that perceptions of high neighborhood social capital are associated with more positive outcomes in many dimensions, including personal resilience, ability to cope with uncertainty, perceptions of community solidarity, and reported compliance with public health measures. We further argue that conceptualizations of social cohesion need to be adjusted to local or national-level cultural norms to accurately capture the experience of countries of the Global South.