Urban Precarity, Digital Mutual Aid, and Community Resilience: A Comparative Socio-Cultural Study of Platform-Based Solidarity in London and Seoul

Abstract

This article examines how digitally mediated mutual aid practices reshape urban community resilience under conditions of economic precarity, housing insecurity, and institutional fragmentation. Through a comparative socio-cultural analysis of London and Seoul, the study investigates how digital platforms, community networks, and local institutional arrangements mediate new forms of solidarity among precarious urban residents. The article argues that digital mutual aid is not merely a temporary crisis response but an emergent socio-cultural infrastructure through which residents negotiate belonging, redistribute informal resources, and challenge institutional neglect. Drawing on comparative urban sociology, digital ethnography, policy analysis, and secondary social indicators, the study compares two analytical dimensions: platform-based neighborhood mutual aid and institutionally supported community welfare initiatives. The findings demonstrate that London’s mutual aid networks are shaped by austerity governance, housing inequality, and grassroots multicultural solidarities, while Seoul’s practices are structured by compressed urbanization, aging populations, neighborhood digitalization, and stronger municipal coordination. The article contributes to social transformation scholarship by showing how urban precarity generates hybrid solidarities that combine digital communication, local cultural norms, and institutional adaptation. It concludes that digital mutual aid can strengthen community resilience, but only when supported by inclusive governance, digital term social policy. access, and long-