Azher Hameed Qamar

As a result of the devastating health effects of the COVID-19 outbreak, the lockdown has been considered a safety measure in many countries. In Pakistan, the first case of COVID-19 was reported in February 2020. The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate people’s risk perception and protective behavior during the lockdown. Twenty-two (22) participants from eight big cities across Pakistan were interviewed. A six-step reflective thematic analysis was used for data analysis. The study focused on risk perception and protective behaviors. Our main analytical goal was to understand how risk perception shapes human behavior in the context of lockdown, pandemic-related information flow, and corresponding meaning-making. The study revealed that people influenced by information and advice campaigns form a perception of risk that has shaped their protective behavior. They used familiar means of coping with distress, including the search for strength through religious belief practices and following the precautions recommended by health professionals through the media.

The current concept of social resilience, which developed from the classic definition of resilience, neglects social resilience as a social phenomenon including social experiences and practices in the face of change and adversity. I argue that framing social resilience as a capacity or ability undermines its characteristics as a complex and contextualized social phenomenon that contributes to adaptive and transformative abilities in the context of migrants' lived experiences. In this article, I present a social constructionist approach to conceptualize social resilience. From a life course perspective, I emphasize on migrants' lived experiences. In this context, I describe status, network, support, and visibility as four institutionally embedded dimensions of social resilience that interconnect environmental factors to impact social experiences and practices. Social resilience is a phenomenon characterized by migrants' lived experiences marked by uncertainty and turning points embodied in the host country's political, economic, cultural, and social contexts.