The coughing body: etiquettes, techniques, sonographies and spaces

Abstract

With newfound relevance in the context of Covid-19, we focus on the coughing body, building on an in-depth qualitative study of three UK lung infection clinics treating people with cystic fibrosis. Conceptually we take our cue from Norbert Elias and the way something as physiologically fundamental as coughing becomes the focus of etiquette and technique, touching also on themes central to Mary Douglas’ anthropology of pollution. This is explored through four themes. First, we show how coughing becomes a matter of biopolitical citizenship expressed through etiquettes that also displace pollution anxieties to surroundings. Second, coughing is a question of being assisted to cough through the mediation of professional skills, interventions and devices. Third, coughing is seen to be central to the sonographic soundscape of the healthcare environment whereby people learn to recognise (and sometimes misrecognise) each other through the ‘sound’ of the cough. Finally, coughing properly can be seen to have both a ‘time and a place’ including the retreat of the cough from public space into risky confined spaces. Our conclusion speculates on the way these insights shed light on aspects of life that, until the Covid-19 pandemic, lay largely hidden.

An Old Acquaintance: Could Adenoviruses Be Our Next Pandemic Threat?

“…Therefore, nations with greater purchasing power would monopolize the bid for these drugs. Accordingly, the focus of nations should be to promote control in non-pharmacological measures, such as preventive isolation of cases, quarantine of close contacts, education in the proper use of masks [ 181 ], hand hygiene and respiratory hygiene/cough etiquette [ 182 , 183 ]. These also include limitations on human mobility and the movement of people between cities, countries or continents and the use of a mask on planes, ships and other means of transport that make long journeys.…”

Unmasked: COVID-19, Face Coverings, and Navigating Dis/Abling Spaces and Cultures

“…In this way, our analysis is limited as face-covering policies and practices will vary, perhaps radically so, in different environments—and in ways that affect and shape dis/abling contexts. Nonetheless, focusing upon the United Kingdom, we argue that face coverings—enmeshed in the “public scenography of pandemic life” (Brown et al, 2021: 284)—have become a political flashpoint that have put disabled people at risk of being challenged, abused, and, in some cases, threatened with arrest (Pendo et al, 2020). Our argument, again, is not about the merits of face coverings, nor does it concern policy legislation.…”

“…Public health campaigns equally embrace the idea of “embodied sociality” (Lupton et al, 2021: 76–77) and politicize face coverings as an act of care and civility. 3 Since face coverings gesture civic responsibility and relate to complex ideas of pollution and moral solidarity (Brown et al, 2021), people who do not comply are subsequently shamed and categorized as “selfish, careless, and as not caring for others,” and people who comply are “applauded as virtuous, self-sacrificing, and recognised for their ability to care for (seemingly all) others” (Lupton et al, 2021: 78). Exemptions disrupt this binary of the careful/caring (those who wear face coverings) and the careless (those who do not wear face coverings).…”

An Old Acquaintance. Could Adenovirus be our Next Pandemic Threat?

“…Therefore, nations with greater purchasing power would monopolize the bid for these drugs. Accordingly, the focus of nations should be to promote control in non-pharmacological measures, such as preventive isolation of cases, quarantine of close contacts, education in the proper use of the mask (187), hand hygiene and Respiratory Hygiene/ Cough Etiquette (188,189). Limitations on Human Mobility and the movement of people between cities, countries, or continents.…”