More than viral: outsiders, Others, and the illusions of COVID-19

Abstract

While necessary to control the pandemic and protect human life, the dominant virus-focused response to COVID-19 is ill-equipped to deal with growing xenophobia and racism, as well as the systemic vulnerabilities that turned a local disease outbreak into a pandemic. This paper draws from work on pathological life and disease ontology in arguing that the COVID-19 pandemic requires both a viral and a more-than-viral response. A pathogen-focused response on its own sustains illusions that this pandemic has a single origin point and an isolated local cause. A complementary relational response to the COVID-19 emergency would help challenge these illusions by attending to the social, ecological, and political circumstances in which the pandemic–and xenophobic and racist reactions to it–have taken place.