Generosity in the time of COVID-19

Against the backdrop of a decade of austerity measures, and in the context of a pandemic that has led to many thousands of deaths, this proposal focuses on human generosity in the UK. Generosity is one framework for understanding human giving - so important in times of crises - and our study will consider this from the rarely considered perspective of those who receive it. We see generosity as an important and productive giving practice, that occurs between people, within systems of social and economic resources. Using a range of qualitative methods (collecting stories, in-depth interviews and content analysis) our proposed research will explore: the quality, nature and experience of generosity from a receiver perspective; perceptions of the effects of generosity over time; as well as how generosity is produced within an uneven social world, paying attention to how generosity works to fill gaps left by a receding state.