The Liveable Lives Study: Understanding everyday help and support

This study highlights an overlooked component of social cohesion – everyday acts of informal help and support within communities. While such acts are often mundane and practical - small loans, lifts, help with shopping - they can also have a significant emotional dimension. although these acts are often simple, navigating them is not: the researchers find that opposing moral forces complicate this picture. Concepts of the ‘deserving’, of stoicism and the imperative to help others all feature in this illuminating study.