COVID-19: The Changing Face of Global Citizenship and the Rise of Pandemic Citizenship

Abstract

With the recent advent of COVID-19, more and more news has been spread throughout various media outlets of the negative behaviour stemming from citizens around the world This behaviour has led to a new word being popularised on the internet: covidiot With the arrival of such new words and new pathogens and viruses, further focus is being placed on globalisation and what a citizen must do or not do during the time of pandemics at the local, national and global level As Bell (2005) explains, for the past few decades in academia, there has been a renewal of attention in citizenship theory, which has resulted in a variety of adjectival citizenships being formed This paper, using the basis of global citizenship among others types of citizenships, such as environmental citizenship and caring citizenship, will look at how the recent focus on global health, has created a changing face of what is global citizenship, and how it must be more inclusive to reflect the changing times As globalisation continues to spread, in conjunction with new viruses, the need to constantly adapt what a global citizen is, must also evolve alongside This paper thus brings forth the new notion of pandemic citizenship: a citizenship inclusive of many other citizenships but unique in its focus on global health