Events of Disruptive Transformation by Zoltán Boldizsár Simon
We have been discussing the prospects of catastrophes of our own making for decades. We have been debating risks linked to anthropogenic climate change and runaway technologies, trying…
Tag: coronavirus
COVID-19 Forum III – Introduction by Christos Lynteris
Thirty-eight days have passed since the publication of Somatosphere’s COVID-19 Forum II. In the course of these days the number of confirmed cases of COVID-19 across the globe…
Sociological Reflections In Times Of Change And Uncertainty: Surveillance, Control And Punishment
CATARINA DELAUNAY On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared a global pandemic on Covid-19. Several countries, across the world, including Portugal, declared a state of…
Privilege and Certainty: Middle Classes and Confinement
The house and the body are the protagonists of isolation. In Argentina, staying at home is experienced as an unequal privilege. The coronavirus put on the table such…
COVID-19 in a war zone
“Marina, how are you? I am worried about you, how is the situation with Corona?” a Yemeni friend asked me last week via Whatsapp. It was not the…
The ‘Invisible Enemy’: A Critical Look at the Use of Military Metaphors and Anthropomorphisation During The COVID-19 Pandemic
JAMES FOTHERBY In mid-March, before becoming infected with Coronavirus, Boris Johnson declared that his government must act like “any wartime government” while facing a deadly “enemy”. During John…
COVID-19, the Freedom to Die, and the Necropolitics of the Market by Vito Laterza
Field hospital constructed in Gothenburg, Sweden in March 2020. Photo: Helén Sjöland. While reading Giorgio Agamben’s (2020) anthropological note on the “danger” of habituation of Italians to…
HIV: God’s punishment for sexual deviants or a holy gift against Corona? by Tankut Atuk
In Turkey, HIV has never been considered a “Turkish” issue, but an issue of Eastern European sex workers and Western queers, both perceived as sexual deviants. However, according…
“There are worse places to spend a lockdown”: Privileged and at risk British retirees in Spain by Emma Fàbrega
It was a sunny Tuesday morning, at the beginning of March 2020. The dirt pétanque field in a Catalan coastal town was filled with English chatter about golf,…
Trench Warfare of Mindsets in Switzerland’s Approach to The COVID-19 Pandemic
HÜSLER SAMIRA-SALOMÉ & PYTHON ANNICK MARIA ILDIKO On 26 March 2020, the Federal Council declared an extraordinary situation in accordance with the Epidemic Act and issued a set…
Quaran-Teen 2020: Our Constantly Evolving Society
[The following students are high school seniors at “KTH School” taking International Baccalaureate Social and Cultural Anthropology. After their final IB exams were cancelled, they decided they would…
COVID-19 Stories: How PhD Students are Experiencing Disruption And Uncertainty During The Pandemic
VAS PAPAGEORGIOU, WILL KENDALL AND LIDIA LUNA PUERTA We are graduate students at an extraordinary time. At the early stage of our careers, we were still learning how…
Equine PPID Connectivities and Covid-19: 2020 Journal Reflections
KIM CROWDER March 8th. I book a routine vet visit for my geriatric rescue pony’s annual vaccinations and hormone-monitoring test. March 22nd. In line with pandemic protocols the…
“In Beijing They Eat Snakes And Then Pig Out”: Xenophobia, Geopolitics, and the Role of the Italian Far-Right in Covid-19 Constructions of China
FRANCESCO FLORIS Well before the high rate of infections grew and lay citizens became affected by COVID-19 in Italy, fear, news from China, fake news, and the statements…
Very, very mild: Covid-19 symptoms and illness classification by Felicity Callard
Mild ‘[A] large portion won’t notice that they have it’. ‘Another substantial portion will have very, very mild symptoms’. ‘A small portion will have a very significant reaction’.…
Why do we talk about Eurobonds? Or: The Big Division in the Euro Area
INGA AENNE FELDMANN The corona virus health crisis sent many countries of the world in a lock down to protect their elderly and vulnerable from severe illness and…
Not on the Beach, or Death in Bondi? by Warwick Anderson
Sydney’s Bondi Beach in January 2012. Photo: Alex Proimos As sometimes happens in Sydney in late March, toward the end of summer, that particular Friday was brilliantly hot…
A Lesson In Composure: Learning From Migrants In Times Of Covid-19
CHRISTIAN UNGRUHE The Covid-19 pandemic teaches a number of painful lessons. Many people, persistently deprived from access to adequate health care, housing, education or jobs, pay a devastating…
The Temporal Politics of Ethnography, Heritability, and Contagion in Tanzania During Covid-19
Editor’s note: This post is the fourth in our five-part series “COVID-19: Views from the Field.” Click here to read an introduction written by series organizer Rebekah Ciribassi.…
Medical anthropology weekly: COVID-19 – Issue 1 by Eugene Raikhel
Covering mid-April – May 4 In an effort to highlight the vital perspectives of medical anthropology and neighboring disciplines, as well as to help manage the volume of…
“Getting Closer” Through Art: Facebook and Turning to Art in The Time of Covid-19
MANUELA PELLEGRINO How to feel close when physically distant? This is, of course, not a new dilemma in itself; indeed, people who live far from their loved ones…
Have Some Mental Health: The Black Summer Bushfires, COVID-19, and the Governance of Psychic Retreat
By Aaron Neiman, Stanford University § Introduction: Hard to Process The events of the recent past have felt increasingly difficult to process. It is a sentiment that one…
In The Midst Of COVID 19, The Search For The Missing In Mexico Continues
CAMILA RUIZ SEGOVIA Night had fallen at the coastal state of Veracruz, Mexico, when a group of men kidnapped Luis Guillermo, 29. He was an independent businessman by…
Muslim NGOs Facing COVID-19 in France #MUHUM
Since the beginning of the Covid-19, Muslim NGOs have been at the forefront of the crisis in France. Their implication at the national level challenges negative stereotypes on…