Breathing Spaces: Crisis, Denial, and Building Collective Care in the Age of Pandemics
Breathing Spaces: Crisis, Denial, and Building Collective Care in the Age of Pandemics is a new report which centres the experiences and organising of Covid safer, disabled and clinically vulnerable communities in the UK and Ireland, and what we can learn from them in building for our current moment. Led by Health Justice Researcher Dr Stephanie Davis, the research seeks to make sense of Covid-19 within a social justice framework, questioning mainstream right wing political discourses of denialism and how this shapes our movements. It reflects on what ‘normal’ we have returned to, and the ways in which Covid denial has emboldened the very structures we are struggling against.
Dr Stephanie Davis
14/04/2026
This report reflects on the Covid-19 pandemic, the denial of its ongoingness and how folks who are positioned as most vulnerable to the virus continue to organise to collectively respond to the current moment.
This work also encourages us to think outside of state institutions to what a Covid or crisis response would look like that centred disability justice and the building of life-affirming infrastructure for the age of pandemics and polycrisis. What might our movements look like if we centred all care for all people?
Launch event: Denial & Collective Care in the Age of Pandemics
Watch the recording of the report launch event. This roundtable conversation featuring Dr Stephanie Davis, Selina Nwulu, Hazel Sealeaf, Blezzing Dada & Chloe Cheeseman (Breathe Easy Sheffield) brings together those who are working to embed disability justice and Covid consciousness across our movements (e.g. climate justice, gender justice), reflecting on:
~ what covid-era organising and denialism tell us about our preparedness to organise in these times
~ how we can be curious about how denialism shapes culture and organising
~ what we can learn from Covid organising and apply to our broader movements
~ how we can centre collective care within our movements for liberation.
~ how viruses can teach us to think communally rather than individually
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