‘They Should have been Looking after People for a Long Time’: Human Giving and Generosity During COVID-19, in Austerity Britain

The COVID-19 pandemic mobilised a multitude of acts of giving and generosity. This article provides a snapshot of giving and generosity among a small sample of individuals in the UK, in a context following years of ungenerous austerity politics. Giving and generous actions played a crucial role in mitigating the negative effects of COVID and we report on data collected using in-depth interviews to understand experiences of giving and generosity. We conceptualise giving and generosity as pro-social or other-focused actions that involve sharing of resources, underpinned by a crossing of the hyphen between self and other. This article explores the ways in which participants were mobilised by perceived social and political injustices and thus we offer a different understanding of giving and generosity as micro-activism that is done with a critical eye turned towards the macro context.