Lockdown dall'alto, comunità dal basso: ripensare la cura in tempo di pandemia

The aim of this article is to analyze community participation as a form of health protection and promotion by focusing on the grassroots actions that emerged in Bologna during last year’s lockdown period in the context of the COVID-19 emergency. In so doing, both the concepts of health and care will be problematised. Specifically, health will be presented as a cultural construct (as it depends on what gives value to people’s lives) that is socially generated (through the involvement of social actors); care will leave the conceptual space of biomedicine to move towards a collective definition of agency. Participation will thus emerge as crucial both for the definition of needs and their care.