Healing Inequality: Community Care in an Era of Collective Trauma

• In Event: Community and Urban Sociology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 12: Community and Connection

Abstract

In a period marked by overlapping crises—political polarization, economic precarity, climate anxiety, and recurring collective trauma—mental health inequities are increasingly shaped by structural and community-level conditions rather than individual pathology alone. While sociological research has extensively documented disparities in mental health outcomes, far less attention has been given to how communities actively respond to these inequities through collective healing practices. This abstract reframes “healing” as a sociological process that operates at the intersection of mental health, social structure, and community resilience.

Drawing from trauma-informed frameworks, public health scholarship, and applied sociological practice, this paper synthesizes insights from community-based initiatives such as mutual aid networks, peer dialogue circles, and creative and embodied wellness programming. Rather than centering clinical treatment or individual coping, these practices illuminate how marginalized communities generate alternative infrastructures of care in response to structural stigma, limited access to services, and fragmented social support systems. The abstract argues that healing functions as a form of social repair—one that redistributes mental health resources through relationships, shared meaning, and collective agency.

By foregrounding community-driven approaches often excluded from dominant mental health frameworks, this work argues that healing is a collective process of rebuilding trust, belonging, and shared agency in the concurrent aftermath of social disruption.

Author

• Francesca M. Rompal, Santa Barbara City College