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- Convenors:
-
Nasima Selim
(University of Bayreuth)
Hansjörg Dilger (Freie Universität Berlin)
Marcos Freire de Andrade Neves (Freie Universität Berlin)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Location:
- Peter Froggatt Centre (PFC), 03/007
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 27 July, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In the wake of "Long Covid", the panel explores future orientations and strategies to deal with the novel pandemics, in relation to the uncertain biosocial outcomes and long-term sociopolitical and economic inequalities resulting from the re/current Covid pandemic across the globe.
Long Abstract:
"Long Covid" is a term created by people suffering from persistent symptoms following a severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. During the first wave of the Covid pandemic in 2020, people with "Long Covid" communicated with each other primarily on social media from where the "Long Covid" trope rapidly traveled to formal health discourses and policy discussions. In addition, novel symptoms have been detected in the subsequent waves of the pandemic, such as the fatal "black fungus" (mucormycosis) among Covid-afflicted patients in India. From social science perspectives, the heuristic term "Long Covid" encompasses not only the clinical dimensions, but also the pervasive biosocial, political, and economic consequences of the novel pandemic across the globe. From early on, apart from clinically evident effects on the physical health of the Covid-affected patients, the psychosocial impacts, ideological differences, and deepening global inequalities along vaccine patent rights and anti-vaccination movements, gender relations, intra- and cross-border immobilities, among others, were reported by the media and social sciences researchers. This panel seeks to articulate future orientations along with the term, framing, and extension of "Long Covid," learning to make the past and present of pandemics matter in creating sustainable futures, exploring the following questions: What are the long-term sociopolitical and economic effects of the Covid pandemic across the globe? How do we effectively discuss the uncertain biosocial consequences and global inequalities resulting from the pandemic? What kind of future orientations can we develop along the re/current novel pandemics and deal with their long-term consequences?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 27 July, 2022, -Paper short abstract:
This paper argues for speculative and metaphysical imaginations in envisioning more-than-human respiratory futures as the "Breathing Commons" in the era of #LongCovid, drawing from the author's ethnographic-aesthetic engagements with pandemic realities across South Asia and Western Europe.
Paper long abstract:
"After the pandemic is before the pandemic" - is a slogan that does not represent the flight of apocalyptic imagination but the intimation of an everyday pandemic reality. The proposed paper seeks to address the following questions: What is the scientific imagination of (acute) Covid-19 obscuring? What could an expansive imagination of #LongCovid contribute? What kind of future orientations can we develop along the re/current novel pandemics and deal with their long-term biosocial consequences? In addition to the proliferating and productive natural, clinical and social scientific articulations of empirical realities, this paper argues for the significance of including speculative and metaphysical imagination, invoking more-than-human respiratory futures. One proposed intervention is the notion of the "Breathing Commons" needed to deal with the suffocating consequences of Covid-19. The "Breathing Commons" of #LongCovid is made of a fractal geometry of interconnected phenomena: the long durée of Covid-19, the recurrences, the variants of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV2), its causative agentic power, and the persistent collective efforts to contain its breathing troubles. This paper draws from the author's ethnographic and aesthetic engagements with pandemic realities across South Asia and Western Europe in the company of the Sufi metaphysical imagination of breath and breathing well and the speculative imagination of science/fiction in pandemic times.
Paper short abstract:
This paper explores the role of social networks in coping with the loss of income/work during COVID-19 lockdowns, to understand how Dhaka urban poor relied on their social networks in face of adversity to survive the emotional stress, food insecurity and worsening poverty brought on by the pandemic.
Paper long abstract:
The government of Bangladesh announced a series of lockdowns throughout the country in response to the COVID pandemic. The sudden lockdowns caused an economic rupture with 71% of those living in slums and 61% of those living in non-slum areas losing work (The Business Standard, 2020).
In this paper, we explore the great importance of social networks in the resilience and coping strategies of those who lost income and work during COVID-19 lockdowns. Informal networks, whether reciprocal or exploitative, play an integral role in urban slums as a means of coping with the general lack of formal systems and support for the poorer households. Due to the congested living conditions in slums, members of different households are able to foster close, trusting relationships and a strong sense of community.
Our analysis attempts to unpack the ways in which our respondents drew on the resilience of their own social networks to combat the socio-economic and emotional health challenges brought on by a lack of adequate formalized support as part of the pandemic response. It draws on the conceptual framework of stress-buffering (Cohen, 2004), which explains how having social support helps in alleviating stress; and examines the ways in which respondents utilize their social capital (Bourdieu, 2000) in order to navigate their informal social networks in order to leverage emotional, financial and/or in-kind (usually food) support as needed to survive.
Paper short abstract:
In wake of COVID-19 and the greater burden of socio-economic uncertainties falling on vulnerable populations, this paper illustrates narratives of men negotiating socially and culturally with their masculinities in the face of shrinking income and livelihood opportunities in Dhaka's urban slums.
Paper long abstract:
The paper illustrates preliminary findings from a qualitative study centered on understanding constructions of masculinities among 30 men in two urban slums, Kallyanpur and Shyampur in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Conducted between February-August 2021, narratives were collected from men employed in a range of occupations - drivers, factory floor workers, paper collectors, scrap dealers, shopkeepers, masons, waiters, imams. Of the 22 men who were employed, 14 reported drop in their income levels, leading to sudden financial crises;coping either through loans from extended families or neighbours, or spending their life savings to buy food and survive on a day-to-day basis. The post-covid income of respondents showed a significant decline and respondents feel their opportunities for livelihoods have shrunk with no signs of recovery (as of the period of study).
Findings argue that the dominant patriarchal notions of masculinity have created less visible, but equally harmful impact on marginalised men's overall well-being during the pandemic that are difficult to recover from.
In a context where manliness is associated with the capacity to provide for families, men's experiences highlight the complex forms of crises for masculine identities. Majority respondents in the study narrated their struggle to conform to the role of the provider, despite limited oppurtunities and the rising need to look for alternatives to managing finances (such as "allowing" their wives to work).