Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to understand emergent public health infrastructures of recovery in India which are articulated by human-nonhuman entanglements, technological devices, telecare, mobile apps, media flows, state and non-state apparatuses, and emerging forms of digital communication.

Paper long abstract:

The Covid-19 pandemic is the concrete manifestation of the ontological insecurities of the Anthropocene. The pandemic demonstrates that the nonhumans can turn into influential agents of history who are capable of disrupting the social order. The emergent public health infrastructures of recovery in India contain webs of associations including telecare technologies, mobile apps, media flows, state and non-state apparatuses, and so on. The global pandemic strengthened a biopolitical order governed by the medical authorities. As everyday activities were jeopardized by the pandemic, zoom calls, virtual communication, email exchanges, telecare, and other virtual activities proliferated to an unprecedented extent. The overwhelming digitalization of social activities now ensures the immunological integrity of people. The quarantined individuals are now protected by a complex assemblage of technological apparatuses. Considering this transformed postdigital reality, this paper seeks to understand the emerging public health infrastructures of recovery in India. The Covid-19 pandemic created a postdigital condition where the virtual and the real can no longer be separated. The virtual which is immanent to the webs of technologies is now assembling the social. The virtual has become a new terrain for activism, healthcare, academic interaction, community mobilization, and artistic practices. Therefore, the emerging postdigital infrastructures of recovery include various webs of associations established between human and technological assemblages. By mobilizing various methods pertaining to medical Anthropology, this paper seeks to understand emerging public health infrastructures of recovery in India which are articulated by human-nonhuman entanglements, technological devices, and emerging forms of digital communication.