The pathological politics of COVID-19

Abstract

The emergence and rapid spread of COVID-19 transformed the world at a bewildering pace. Within a few short weeks, the pandemic reshaped lives everywhere. Nevertheless, while global is in its impact, the catastrophic effects of the pandemic have been far from uniform. Instead, they have traced the contours of, and further entrenched, existing structural inequalities and violences, most notably exacerbating global poverty and health inequality, racial hierarchies, gendered divisions of labour, and the margination of disabled people. Although many have recognised these tracings as a further indictment of the deep-rooted violence of prevailing conditions, eugenicist logics of disposability have shaped both intellectual and policy responses. However, even as it has tracked and intensified this violence, the pandemic has also revealed as fictions those hierarchies which frame Europe and the US as uniquely positioned to manage and administer crisis. The calamitous and still unfolding disasters of COVID management in the US and across much of Europe have shaken their deep-rooted claims to global supremacy. Nevertheless, the harm to lives and livelihoods is most acute in the Global South. And as wealthy nations secure their places at the front of the queue for vaccines, eager to declare the return to normality, the very inequalities which manifest in differential vulnerability to the pandemic will determine who will be left behind. The pieces featured in Issue One of this two-part collection examine these uneven and often catastrophic impacts across a range of global sites and systems. In addition, they explore practices of solidarity, mutual aid, and resistance that have emerged conterminously. Variously considering issues including vaccine access, migration and borders, emergency response and communications failures, teaching and learning, and stories of success from the Global South, the collection provides a series of snapshots into conceptualising and living with COVID-19. As we struggle to come to terms with the effects of last year on both our academic and everyday lives, we hope the Issue creates a space in which to reflect on, and make some sense of, the pathological politics of the pandemic.