“This is the real face of Covid-19!”: How Refused Knowledge Communities Entered the Pandemic Arena

Abstract

This chapter analyses the process involved in enacting broad discursive substantive arenas in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. In so doing, the chapter highlights the role played by both human and non-human agents (such as the technologies mobilised to counteract the spread of SARS CoV-2 and the actors considered experts by refused knowledge communities’ [RKCs’] followers) in enacting counter narratives about the Covid-19 pandemic, so as to make sense of the global emergency according to a body of refused knowledge. Hence, the chapter illustrates how these counter narratives progressively empower RKCs to collaboratively act within a broad discursive arena, fostering public dissent against public health policies. Indeed, RKCs permeate public discourses about emerging societal issues in depth, also attracting the attention and concerns of both policymakers and media operators.