Epidemics, Xenophobia and Narratives of Propitiousness

Onoma, Ato Kwamena

doi:10.1080/01459740.2020.1753047

Cited by 16 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 50 publications

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“…For individuals trying to understand contagion, invisible monstrosity gets mapped onto the quotidian lives of the Other. It's a tale as old as infectious disease: epidemics go hand in hand with outbreaks of xenophobia (Onoma 2020 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

The Pandemic Imaginerie: Infectious Bodies and Military-Police Theater in Australia

Wynn

2021

Cult. Anthropol.

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When pathogens and their movement between people cannot be seen, we imagine them. That imagined menagerie—imaginerie—of infection then becomes associated with marginal others whose bodies and actions become popularly conflated with disease and its transmission. This essay explores how methods of imagining and managing the COVID-19 pandemic in Australia echoed historical scripts for policing borders and containing the bodies of outsiders deemed threats to the national body.

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confidence: 99%

The Pandemic Imaginerie: Infectious Bodies and Military-Police Theater in Australia

Wynn

2021

Cult. Anthropol.

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“…Anthropologists are quickly contributing to insights related to fear and COVID-19 (e.g. Manderson and Levine 2020), following a history of social science engagement with political, economic, and cultural dimensions of epidemics and pandemics (see Abramowitz 2017;Farmer 1992;Onoma 2020). An anthropology of health and risk informs interpretations of fears of contagion and political demise (Panter-Brick 2014).…”

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confidence: 99%

“…Blame in conspiracies of COVID-19 is distributed differently across beliefs. Some question actions of the Chinese government and/or mention relationships with, for instance, people from Wuhan, China, reflecting xenophobic ideologies (Onoma 2020). Others focus more directly on the Trump administration's lack of empathy and support for life-saving interventions as the biggest threat to health and life.…”

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confidence: 99%

Connection, Contagion, and COVID-19

Hardy¹

2020

Medical Anthropology

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Anthropologists have long known how perceptions of contagion play out along the lines of xenophobia and racism. Months after the beginning of the global Cover-19 pandemic, predictions by anthropologists of xenophobic ideologies and actions have come to pass. In the United States people understand the global pandemic not as biology, but as the manifestation of political affiliation, difference, connection, and disconnection. COVID-19 is, according to public perception, dangerous because it maliciously mutates to attack. It is "a guy we don't know." Relationships between the mysteriousness of the virus and heightened visibility of longstanding inequality in the United States form new contexts for existing social tensions. These dynamics provide a backdrop against which the ongoing commitment to uprisings connected to the Black Lives Matter movement unfold. Here I draw on analysis of 50 semi-structured interviews we conducted from March to August of 2020 demonstrating how understandings of the biology of a virus are woven into perceptions of politics, inequality, and the fractures of a divided nation. To understand social and political responses to the global pandemic it is essential that we continue to investigate xenophobia, inequality, and racism alongside the biological impact of SARS-CoV-2.

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“…Racism and blame have long accompanied pandemics [ 36 , 37 ]. Cultural essentialism is the practice of viewing “culture” as a static and exclusive descriptive category used to develop perceptions about other people based on small and often untrue interpretations of culture.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Who is to blame for COVID-19? Examining politicized fear and health behavior through a mixed methods study in the United States

et al. 2021

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Background Political ideologies drove public actions and health behaviors in the first year of the global pandemic. Different ideas about contagion, health behaviors, and the actions of governing bodies impacted the spread of the virus and health and life. Researchers used an immediate, mixed methods design to explore sociocultural responses to the virus and identified differences and similarities in anxiety, fear, blame, and perceptions of nation across political divides. Methods Researchers conducted 60 in-depth, semi-structured interviews and administered over 1,000 questionnaires with people living in the United States. The team analyzed data through an exploratory and confirmatory sequential mixed methods design. Results In the first months of the pandemic interviewees cited economic inequality, untrustworthy corporations and other entities, and the federal government as threats to life and pandemic control. Participants invoked ideas about others to determine blame. Findings reveal heavy associations between lack of safety during a public health crisis and blame of “culture” and government power across the political spectrum. Conclusion Data indicate anxiety across political differences related to ideas of contagion and the maleficence of a powerful elite. Findings on how people understand the nation, politics, and pandemic management contribute to understanding dimensions of health behaviors and underlying connections between anxiety and the uptake of conspiracy theories in public health. The article ends with recommendations drawn from project findings for future pandemic response.

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Epidemics, Xenophobia and Narratives of Propitiousness

Cited by 16 publications

References 50 publications

The Pandemic Imaginerie: Infectious Bodies and Military-Police Theater in Australia

The Pandemic Imaginerie: Infectious Bodies and Military-Police Theater in Australia

Connection, Contagion, and COVID-19

Who is to blame for COVID-19? Examining politicized fear and health behavior through a mixed methods study in the United States

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