Paper short abstract:

This paper explores the temporal effects of the Ebola crisis on life in Freetown through assessing responses to heavy regulations imposed to contain the virus. It examines the interplay between the experience of ‘life on hold’ in crisis, and opportunities for ‘progress’, reflection, and critique.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the temporal effects of the Ebola crisis on life in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Although most residents had no direct contact with it, Ebola was omnipresent in Freetown during the second half of 2014 and the first half of 2015. This was particularly the result of restrictions imposed by national and international authorities to control the spread of the virus, including heavy regulations surrounding business activity, travel, social gatherings, participation in life-cycle rituals and seasonal festivities, and the shutting of schools and colleges. Given the importance of these activities on marking the passage of social time, I suggest that Freetown residents experienced a liminal sense of 'life on hold' during the crisis, which was discernibly connected to the rules and procedures of the 'state of emergency' that was in place for an unspecified duration.

However, the crisis also allowed for reflexive engagements with and furthering of existing life-projects - which under normal conditions cannot be considered 'linear' or predictable - partly in the form of new employment opportunities and channels of income. Experiences of overt regulation allowed for critiques of the motivations and methods of powerful authorities. In addition, people found novel covert ways of performing ongoing obligations and tasks, counter-balancing the risks of stagnation or decline. The paper interrogates the interplay between 'life on hold' in crisis and 'normal' life and temporal horizons in Sierra Leone. The paper is informed by 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork, spanning the period directly before the crisis, and the crisis itself.