1st Edition
Negotiating the Pandemic Cultural, National, and Individual Constructions of COVID-19
This book centers on negotiations around cultural, governmental, and individual constructions of COVID-19. It considers how the coronavirus pandemic has been negotiated in different cultures and countries, with the final part of the volume focusing on South Asia and Pakistan in particular. The chapters include auto-ethnographic accounts and ethnographic explorations that reflect upon experiences of living with the pandemic and its implications for all areas of life. The book explicates people’s dealings with COVID-19 at various levels, situates the spread of rumors, conspiracy theories, and new social rituals within micro- and/or macro-contexts, and describes the interplay between the virus and various institutionalized forms of inequalities and structural vulnerabilities. Bringing together a variety of perspectives, the volume relates to the past, describes the Covidian present, and offers futuristic implications. It enlists distinct imaginaries based on current understandings of an extraordinary challenge that holds significant importance for our human future.
Introduction: Constructing and Negotiating Covid-19
Inayat Ali and Robbie Davis-Floyd
Part I: Auto-Ethnographic Reflections on Negotiating the Coronavirus Pandemic
1. My Great-Grandmother, Malinowski, and my "Self": An Autoethnographic Account of Negotiating Covid-19
Inayat Ali
2. Negotiating Covid-19 in The Media: Autoethnographic Reflections on Sweden and International Reporting
Rachel Irwin
3. Loss and Longing for the Field During Covid 19 in Australia, and Finding it Again because "Ngukurr is Everywhere"
Kate Senior, Richard Chenhall, and Fran
Part II: Conceptualizing and Negotiating the Pandemic Across Professions, Cultures, and Countries
4. "As Soon As People See You Cough, They Say You Have The Disease": Negotiating Covid-Related Stigma and Health-Seeking Behaviors in Kenya
Violet Barasa
5. How us Maternity Care Providers Conceptualize Covid-19 and Negotiate Practice Changes: The Tensions Between Organizational Protocols and Childbearers’ Needs
Kim Gutschow and Robbie Davis-Floyd
6. Health Literacy and Information Fatigue: Understanding People’s Beliefs and Behaviors as they Negotiate Covid-19 in Germany
Mayarí Hengstermann
7. Viral Exposure: Negotiating Risks, Boundaries and Meanings of Protective Practices Against Covid-19 in Switzerland
Nolwenn Bühler, Melody Pralong, Célia Burnand, Cloé Rawlinson, Semira Gonseth Nusslé, Valérie D’acremont, Murielle Bochud, and Patrick Bodenmann
8. Practicing Resilience While Negotiating the Pandemic: The Experiences of People With Rare Diseases in Poland
Katarzyna E. Król and Małgorzata Rajtar
9. Negotiating Covid-19 in Russia on the Eve of the Introduction of Social Restrictions
Tatiana O. Novikova, Dmitry G. Pirogov, Tatyana V. Malikova, and Georgiy A. Murza-Der
10. The Quest for a Cure for Covid-19: Controversies and Negotiations Around Biomedical Treatments and Traditional Asian Medicines
Danuta Penkala-Gawęcka
11. How do Small-To-Medium Enterprises (Smes) Negotiate the Covid-19 Pandemic in Indonesia? Santirianingrum Soebandhi, Kristiningsih, and Ira Darmawanti
Part III: Culturally Constructing And Negotiating Covid-19 In South Asia
12. Sri Lankans’ Negotiations Around Covid-19: Can a Culture Control a Viral Outbreak?
Tharaka Ananda and Inayat Ali
13. Negotiating Covid-19 in Bhutan: Successfully Aligning Science, Politics, Culture, and Religion in a Unique Public Health Strategy
Mary Grace A. Pelayo, Ian Christopher N. Rocha, Jigme Yoezer
14. Negotiating India During the Covid-19 Crisis: Issues and Challenges
Suman Chakrabarty
15. Contesting Covid-19 In Bangladesh: Government Responses and Local Perceptions
Inayat Ali and Sudipta Das Gupta
Part IV: Negotiating Covid-19 in Pakistan: Cultural Conceptions and Pandemic Responses
16. Social Constructions of the Concept of Covid-19 in Pakistan: An Anthropological Investigation
Sara Akram and Rao Nadeem Alam
17. Local Perceptions of Covid-19 in Pakistan’s Sindh Province: Political Game, Supernatural Test, or Western Conspiracy?
Inayat Ali, Salma Saddique, and Shahbaz Ali
18. Negotiating Shopping Behaviors After the Outbreak of Covid-19 in Pakistan
Tayyaba Rafique Makhdoom, Sanaullah Jamali, and Maria Tufail Memon
19. How Students Negotiated a University Closure: The Impacts of "Covistress" on Undergraduate Students of The University of Sindh During Online Education
Abdul Razaque Channa and Umbreen Soomro
Conclusions
Conclusions
Inayat Ali and Robbie Davis-Floyd
Index
Biography
Inayat Ali has recently completed his PhD in the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Vienna, Austria
Robbie Davis-Floyd is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Rice University, USA, and specializes in the anthropology of reproduction.
"The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the world, but differently in different places. Thus, everywhere it is possible to talk about life and experience before the pandemic, and how things are different now. These statements are true and matter because in all places in the world the pandemic has been a force and a presence that cannot be ignored. It is on this basis that this illuminating and insightful global collection gives rise to what the editors call Covidian anthropology, the ethnographic and auto-ethnographic examination of sociocultural constructions of and negotiations around COVID-19 at the individual, local, sociocultural, national, and global levels. Addressing a wide array of issues of anthological concern, the chapters in this volume affirm that COVID-19 is far more than a biomedical issue in that it shapes and is shaped by culture, hierarchy, inequality, social vulnerability, meaning, and agency as it engages the fault lines of society. This book is a must read within and beyond the academy as we try to make sense of the pandemic and its multiple impacts on our lives." - Merrill Singer, University of Connecticut
