In April 2020, en.v teamed up with Batul Sadliwala, an independent researcher and development practitioner, to co-create and implement the Neighborhood Tales: Kuwait Under Lockdown project. Neighborhood Tales is a community history project which offers first-hand insights into the lives of 30 unique individuals living in Kuwait, specifically exploring the ways in which they experienced the Covid-19 pandemic. The testimonies reveal how they each navigated the ever-changing restrictions and realizations which accompanied the disease, including lockdown, institutional quarantine, food (in)security, and changing spatial and social dynamics.

These testimonies cover a wide range of subjective perspectives and experiences and offer us insights into what a group of people saw, felt, heard and learnt during the early and peak months of the pandemic. The project team adapted best practices from the field of oral history throughout program design and implementation, and worked with a group of seven interviewers to gather a total of 30 in-depth testimonies in four languages (English, Arabic, Hindi and Gujrati) between June and mid-September 2020. The list of final narrators is gender balanced with 15 interviews each with men and women. All but one of the narrators are non-Kuwaiti and represent 13 different nationalities. The youngest narrator turned 20 this year, our oldest 85. Either prior to or at the time of their interview, six individuals were confirmed to be recovering from COVID-19. The range of professions and socio-economic backgrounds is just as broad, and includes nurses, doctors, teachers, domestic workers, banking professionals, retail and hospitality workers, students and others. To find out more about our process, please click here.

Here are a few things to keep in mind when exploring our collection, and as you step in and out of the different worlds of each of our narrators:

We are interested in the power of listening.

Take a moment to pause and to listen (to really listen) to the stories in this collection and ask yourself: What might we learn? Not just about them but about ourselves? About Kuwait? What actions are we inspired to take? What else could we learn from one another?

Our narrators are not experts or representatives of their communities.

They are just as imperfect and fallible, even prejudiced, as you and I. We want to cherish and celebrate the facts of their personal experiences, emotions and perspectives without looking for objective truths about the communities they come from or even about Kuwait.

Remember that our narrators are not reflecting on events long past,

but recent events whose effects they themselves are still internally working through-- even as they speak on tape. Reflections and emotions that for most were constantly changing, unraveling, and were also heightened. We ask of you to approach their testimonies with an open heart and mind.

We aren’t historians.

We and our interviewers are activists, researchers, and community organizers rooted in Kuwait. We are sometimes members of the communities whose stories we are highlighting.

Our collection of testimonies isn't a representative sample of Kuwait’s actual population.

Working through our own extensive network, we carefully identified individuals and communities whose stories we believe were the least likely to get sustained quality coverage elsewhere. This is not the full picture but a few pieces of the puzzle.

We are learning.

While we made sure to consult and listen to as many of our trusted community members and partners, and to build an unbiased and open ended group of questions to ask our narrators, some themes emerged to be more relevant than others, more meaningful, and more thought-provoking.

What you are hearing and reading captures just a moment;

a snapshot into the worlds and complex lives of a group of individuals in a single moment in time. You are supposed to wonder about the past, the future and the context. Allow yourself to be curious and to openly explore.

We are not claiming to quantify or generalize the experience of the pandemic in Kuwait,

nor do we endorse any popular opinions. Each narrator is entitled to their own perspectives, and we only claim to capture the essence of their very individual (and complex) human experiences, as objectively as possible.

WHAT HAVE WE LEARNT?

An analysis of the collection reveals that - despite the variety of experiences - a few key themes emerge repeatedly across interviews. These include the role of community networks, mental health, financial safety nets, and the narrator’s socioeconomic status in Kuwait as central to enabling individual and community resilience. 

Community networks

The strength of an individual's social ties--whether with their families, neighbors or colleagues-- was a crucial determinant of their material and psychological resilience. For some, the lockdown revealed the possibility of mutual aid amongst neighbors with, for instance, individuals offering to shop for other households so that fewer people would have to brave the queues at the grocery stores. For others, these relationships remained as estranged as before. Similarly, family ties were tested all round, but the outcomes have varied. For many, their relationships strengthened as a result of spending more time together - either in person or online. For others, especially migrant workers who have spent years away from their families, the inability to remit funds home strained relationships. 

Financial safety nets

Non-Kuwaiti residents faced the brunt of the economic fallout in Kuwait with many private sector enterprises unable or unwilling to pay employees during the lockdown. Unsurprisingly, the better off you were, the more likely you were to be able to access groceries, health care and other essential services. Narrators who were left without work and pay were the most likely to have smaller household incomes and savings as they normally use their meagre wages as remittances and for living expenses. When asked about what they’d change about their lives after the crisis, a common refrain from these individuals was an imperative to save more effectively and secure more stable incomes. To a couple of narrators who spent time in institutional quarantine, conditions in hastily built field quarantine centers were far better than their regular cramped accommodation.

Faith and well-being

As around the world, all our narrators, regardless of their background, found themselves wrestling with anxieties about everything from being unable to pay rent or buy food to not knowing when they’d be able to see their loved ones again to, of course, contracting COVID-19. Coping strategies included prayer, practicing gratitude, picking up new hobbies, reconnecting with old friends and so on. Narrators who worked as volunteers with local civil society organizations described a sharp increase in individuals in need of psychological support as well as the dearth of resources to provide such assistance. Healthcare workers assigned to COVID-19 duty recounted being burnt out due to long shifts. Overall, the stronger their social networks and socioeconomic status, the better they were able to manage their mental well-being. A number of individuals found the interview process itself a valuable opportunity for them to candidly share and reflect on their experiences. Over and over though, and irrespective of spiritual practice, our narrators show the commonality of tapping into faith to find meaning, balance and gratitude amid despair.

Life in Kuwait

As the pandemic exposed socioeconomic inequities around the world, almost all of our narrators reflected on how they saw the crisis affecting those around them and their relationship to Kuwait. Our more financially secure narrators were compelled to reflect on their privilege vis a vis more vulnerable members of their communities. Local aid organizers and volunteers, most members of the communities they serve, spoke of why they were motivated to give back to the broader community as well as the particular challenges faced by migrants and domestic workers in lockdown. Some express gratitude and relief for the speed and decisiveness with which Kuwait responded to the pandemic. Others are more critical of discriminatory aspects of the response (for e.g. lockdowns of migrant neighborhoods, dissemination of case numbers by nationality) and the increase in xenophobic rhetoric in the media and by public figures. Taken together, the testimonies present a tension between a sense of belonging and gratitude that many long term non-Kuwaiti residents have developed and feelings of insecurity and exclusion engendered by the crisis’ fallout.

WANT MORE?

We have put together a private collection, which contains the full recordings and transcripts of all interviews conducted, to help promote higher levels of awareness, support advocacy efforts and enhance educational curriculums both locally and internationally. Please fill out the form below if you are an educator, scholar or researcher interested in accessing this collection. 

THANK YOU

We have so many people to thank for helping us bring this project to life. First and foremost, our amazing community partner Batul Sadliwala, for bringing her all to every single step of this journey. Our fellow interviewers and friends, Zainab Mirza, Abdullah Khoneini and Ghzayil Al Harbi, for joining us with such enthusiasm on what was sometimes a real emotional rollercoaster. Our extensive network of transcribers, translators and reviewers who embraced the gravity of their role with such diligence and attention to detail. Dr. Dalal Al Fares, for her valuable insights and support through the narrative analysis process. Our program partners, the Konrad Adenuaer Stiftung, without whom none of this work would be possible. And most importantly, every one of our very generous, brave and resilient narrators, for trusting us with their stories and allowing us all to learn from them. Thank you.