Paper short abstract:

At the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19 cases in Guayaquil were overwhelming. Cell phone images of dead bodies lying on the streets in low-income neighborhoods, rapidly circulated on the internet. In this context, I ask how do these images affect individuals and communities differently?

Paper long abstract:

At the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19 cases in Guayaquil, a coastal city of Ecuador, were overwhelming. Cell phone images of dead bodies lying on the streets, outside of homes in low-income neighborhoods, rapidly circulated on the internet, while authorities denied the severity of the spread of the disease. It was during this same period when Ecuador’s government closed its international borders and declared a national lockdown. Mobily was heavily restricted and prohibited across provinces. Nonetheless, large groups of people “escaped” Guayaquil only to find themselves discriminated against when they arrived in other localities. Coming out of Guayaquil became synonymous with carrying the virus and this was greatly influenced by the pictures that had circulated on social media. During periods of isolation people tend to rely heavily on the media for information. Nowadays it is extremely easy to take photos and videos and make them widely available. Shocking mobile phone images of the COVID-19 situation in Guayaquil became powerful compliance mechanisms elsewhere in the country. But for people fleeing the big city to find a safer place, the same images cause people to treat them with discrimination. In this context, I ask, what representations of suffering were widely circulated during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, and how do these images affect individuals and communities differently? How do people’s behaviors alter after being exposed to the images? What can these images contribute to the ethnographic research and analysis about care and discrimination?