Summaries of Responses From: Collecting COVID-19: A crowd-sourced digital ethnography of the COVID-19 Pandemic Question One: How do people find and share information online during a global pandemic? ‘Anthropological Responses to COVID-19’ will comprise six questions, each lasting a fortnight. These are posted on a website created by University College London’s Centre for Digital Anthropology….
Tag: covid-19
Rapid Public Health Enlightenment (RPHE) to Curb the Continued Spread Of COVID-19 in Nigeria
S. AKINMAYỌWA LAWAL & JIMOH AMZAT As of Tuesday, 31st March 2020, the number of confirmed cases of Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Nigeria had risen to 135. A week ago, the total number of confirmed cases as at Tuesday 24th March 2020 was 44. The data shows a surge of over 100% of confirmed cases within…
“South Africa Suffering from Three Pandemics: COVID-19, Ignorance, Stupidity”
KEKETSO PEETE “… those things kill people who fly, us we don’t fly, we are here in Mzansi [South Africa] year in and year out” This was a statement that was made by an elderly man who was interviewed by an E TV news reporter, in the streets of Johannesburg, on the first day of…
COVID-19: A Simulacrum of the Climate Crisis?
HACER GÖREN 31st March 2020. Contrary to the once dominant optimism among the public that “Turkey is safe and secure”, COVID-19 has not skipped Turkey either. Yes, it is a single and “simple” virus that started to reinscribe not only Turkey but also the entire globe. Since 11th March 2020, when the first corona case…
God, health and COVID-19 in remote Papua New Guinea
MONICA MINNEGAL AND PETER DWYER The first COVID-19 case reached Papua New Guinea (PNG) on 13 March 2020, though it was several days before it was unambiguously confirmed. On 17 March the pandemic was declared a national security issue, and a State of Emergency came into effect on 24 March. By coincidence, in the week commencing Monday 16 March, members…
Global Distrust & the Future of Multilateralism: Reflection on International Relations and Covid-19
FATHI RAYYAN Most of us would be able to recall World War I and its catastrophic outcome that triggered the emergence of the International Relations (IR) discipline in 1919. However, we often overlook a pandemic outbreak that occurred at around the same time in 1918. The Spanish Flu, spread with astonishing speed around the world,…
Technologies of Public Security: Deploying Imaginary Borders
HARRY FLETCHER On the 23rd of January, I sat on the fourth floor of a packed-out library, writing my dissertation. My thesis was on building pandemic resilient airports, and the lessons we could take from the 2003 SARS pandemic (another coronavirus that spread globally as asymptomatic but infectious passengers transited through airports). My institutional email…
Brasil, A Quarentena Como Possibilidade: Um Diálogo Africano E Sul-Americano
ANA GRETEL ECHAZÚ BÖSCHEMEIER & PINGRÉWAOGA BÉMA ABDOUL HADI SAVADOGO A presente é uma reflexão a duas vozes entre pessoas com origens continentais diversas que moram no Brasil. Abdoul Hadi P.B. Savadogo é socioantropólogo, burkinabê-malinês, (Burkina Faso e Mali) atuando no âmbito dos Estudos Africanos. Ana Gretel é antropóloga, feminista, do noroeste de Argentina, trabalhando…
Vulnerability of the Indian Poor
JESSICA GHATODE The global economy seems to be entering troubled territories as the second wave of COVID-19 spread to countries which remained unaffected so far. The economic impact, now no more limited to China, is evidently slowing down other economies including the US economy. Crippling down of world’s two greatest economies is surely bad news…
Hope in the Time of Corona: Indonesia
GEGER RIYANTO We were supposed to have a family dinner. In three days, I will be departing back to Germany. I was coming home for a few weeks to Indonesia in the middle of writing my Ph.D. thesis. Suddenly, during the motorcycle ride to my family’s apartment, my body ached unbearably. My temperature shot up….
Communication, Privilege and the Ironies of Isolation: From Melbourne To Papua New Guinea
MONICA MINNEGAL AND PETER D. DWYER Sunday, 5 April 2020: we are in day 14 of Covid-19 quarantine. We are fortunate to be in our own house in Melbourne, Australia. We can access relatives, friends and news of the world by telephone, email and the internet. We order groceries on-line and they are delivered to…
Another Day In Quarantine: The Transmutation Of The House
MARÍA FLORENCIA BLANCO ESMORIS La Matanza, Buenos Aires, Argentina I didn’t wake up that day like all the others. I had slept badly. My only peace of mind was that my morning had started with a nice mate[1].How beautiful is the certitude when you can embrace it, when it covers you like a shelter or…
The Sleeping Bull in a China Shop
Exploring how Covid19 elucidates exploitation along the crosshairs of the occident vs the orient, and class stratification, in a neo-liberal age. LOUIS A.G. WILKES Night and Day; East and West. Two signifiers of the same spectrum that represent opposites. In a social imaginary that Marshall McLuhan referred to as the ‘global village’ (1962, p293), that…
Homecoming From The City: Covid-19 & Dhaka
MOHAMMAD TAREQ HASAN Due to the outbreak of Covid-19 in Bangladesh, the government has announced a countrywide shutdown. The declaration of “public holiday” came on March 24th in the afternoon. The shutdown – to be started from 26th of March for 10 days – was proposed to restrict community transmission of the coronavirus. Since the…
Pandemics/ Epidemics and the Social Body in Bangladesh
MOHAMMAD TAREQ HASAN Outbreak of Covid-19 virus in Bangladesh has forced the government to shut down all private and public offices except the emergency service providers. The shutdown started from 26th March and will continue until 4th April. The measure of shutting down the country has come after indications of community transmission of the virus…
Protecting The Boundaries, Keeping A Strong Heart In Laos
ELIZABETH ELLIOTT The first cases of Covid-19 were recorded in Vientiane on March 24th; until then, Laos had been the last country in Southeast Asia to be officially ‘Covid-19 free’, a source of national pride, even if many had doubts. A landlocked country, surrounded by more populated and economically powerful nations, Laos has long felt…
Green Shoots
KATHARINE DOW ‘We’re in an incredibly unsettling period, globally, nationally. Can I allay some of my anxieties about what this means for me and my kids by buying a few instant mashed potato and extra chickpeas and corned beef? Well, maybe. Does that make me ridiculous? Possibly. Do I feel a bit better about it?…
Privilege In The Times Of Crisis: Musings Of A Field Epidemiology Trainee In India
NUZRATH JAHAN COVID-19 has invaded our lives physically and psychologically. For someone working in the health sector, and a field epidemiology trainee, the first week of COVID-19 went by in a whirlwind for me. Our contact session for the India FETP(Field Epidemiology Training Programme) got suspended and we were posted into field work to be…
Hinduism & Coronavirus: How The Digital Becomes Sacred
TILAK PAREKH The coronavirus has led to seismic and widespread changes across all nodes of society, not least, religion. In a recent article in The New York Times, Vivian Yee writes, “Religion is the solace of first resort for billions of people grappling with a pandemic for which scientists, presidents and the secular world seem,…
2009 Mexico Swine Flu – 2020 Italy Covid19: How I Experienced A Double Quarantine
SARA SALVATORI In this article, I will briefly describe my experiences during the two pandemics, swine flu and COVID-19, when I accidentally lived through quarantine in the most affected countries: Mexico in 2009 and Rome, Italy. When in 2008 I decided to go to Mexico to undertake fieldwork for my doctoral thesis, I could never…