A meditation on Covid-19 social trauma

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article explores covid-19 as a social traumatic event that thoroughly disrupted our ordinary plane of existence. In doing so, it opened a window to an uncanny world, in which the virus, manifesting profuse agentic capacity, repurposes to its benefit, to travel and multiply, human bodies and various global assemblages. Covid-19 pandemic’s challenge to the social grounding structure in turn perturbs our sense of ontological security. Meditating on these aspects, the article identifies the pandemic as a liminal situation that confronts humanity with all four givens of existence: death, freedom, isolation, and meaningless. Written during these unique global circumstances, the article directs its attention towards covid-19 social trauma and to several societal responses. These take the form of conspiratorial mythical thinking, communities formed around a shared existential state of vulnerability, as well as emancipation and revolutionary political acts.