Anthropology of a Pandemic (original) (raw)
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American Journal of Biological Anthropology
Biological anthropologists are ideally suited for the study of pandemics given their strengths in human biology, health, culture, and behavior, yet pandemics have historically not been a major focus of research. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced the need to understand pandemic causes and unequal consequences at multiple levels. Insights from past pandemics can strengthen the knowledge base and inform the study of current and future pandemics through an anthropological lens. In this paper, we discuss the distinctive social and epidemiological features of pandemics, as well as the ways in which biological anthropologists have previously studied infectious diseases, epidemics, and pandemics. We then review interdisciplinary research on three pandemics-1918 influenza, 2009 influenza, and COVID-19-focusing on persistent social inequalities in morbidity and mortality related to sex and gender; race, ethnicity, and Indigeneity; and pre-existing health and disability. Following this review of the current state of pandemic research on these topics, we conclude with a discussion of ways biological anthropologists can contribute to this field moving forward. Biological anthropologists can add rich historical and cross-cultural depth to the study of pandemics, provide insights into the biosocial complexities of pandemics using the theory of syndemics, investigate the social and health impacts of stress and stigma, and address important methodological and ethical issues. As COVID-19 is unlikely to be the last global pandemic, stronger involvement of biological anthropology in pandemic studies and public health policy and research is vital.
Anthropologists Approach and Corona pandemic -an online lecture for ASPIRE
The pandemics are neither new to human race nor to anthropologists. The Corona pandemic is one like them .Currently, Covid-19 is a disease on a global scale, but it is not a universal phenomenon. Anthropological research is essential for placing it in context. The corona virus outbreak raises fundamental questions about the politics and narratives of crisis, as well as about our “ordinary” everyday lives and sociality.
[Book/Introduction chapter] Pandemics and Epidemics in Cultural Representation
Springer, 2022
Pandemics and epidemics have always shaped our history. Throughout recorded human history, periodic outbreaks of catastrophic pandemics and epidemics have threatened human existence on this planet and have been a regular reminder of our mortality and vulnerability in the face of nature’s calamities, including deadly diseases. These episodes have often shown the limitations of human knowledge, particularly advancements in science to fortify against the violence of new and often deadly pathogens. At the same time, pandemics and epidemics have also been formative moments of human history, ushering in momentous transformations in the ways in which we live and relate to each other. They have provided opportunities to gain new insights into the human body and how it functions, as well as reflect on the ways in which societies and communities form and interact.
Society for Ethnomusicology © The COVID-19 Pandemic & the Future of Ethnomusicology
SEM SN, 2020
It has been months since most of the world realized the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the privileged ones-who have the financial sources to maintain their lives without working outside-took shelter in their homes. With every passing day, we have a better understanding that what we are going through is not a short-term disaster, during which we will stay in our homes for a while and then go back to "normal." First and foremost, this worldwide phenomenon, with a sense of uncertainty surrounding the "defeat" of the virus, brings forth a unique dimension to our experience. As we feel closer to death and loss, we are also witnessing the deterioration of all the institutions, health systems being the most important, that we assume to be working along with the immutable nature of social inequalities "in sickness and in health." Furthermore, the already existing economic crisis will only deepen with unforeseeable consequences that increase worries about the future, even for those in the most privileged positions. We must also face the truth that the emergence of this pandemic cannot be considered independently from the current global climate crisis. We need to apprehend that our relationship with nature may pave the way for similar pandemics in the following years, perhaps leading to an age of viruses or other disasters. Thus, we cannot assume the current circumstance developed along with COVID-19 is an exception. Due to all these reasons, when the pandemic finally ends, we can only imagine "going back home" if we understand that "home is a place where you have never been," as poetically described by Ursula Le Guin in The Dispossessed (1994, 70). Even for those who, so far, has been safe and sound, the impact of this reality on daily life is indisputable.
Syndemic: A Synergistic Anthropological Approach to the COVID-19 Pandemic
Encyclopedia
This review describes the relationship between the coronavirus-related pandemic and health inequities. The latter are linked to pre-existing social and economic discriminations in terms of access to healthcare for people affected by chronic diseases. We believe that we are living in a “syndemic pandemic”. The term “syndemic” was originally developed by the medical anthropologist Merrill Singer in the 1990s in order to recognize the correlation between HIV/AIDS, illicit drug use, and violence in the United States. This complex interplay exacerbated the burden of the disease and the prognosis of the patient. Similarly, in COVID-19 infection, socio-economic, ethnic, and racial inequities result in higher morbidity and mortality in certain sections of society. Unfortunately, such differences are becoming too common during the COVID-19 pandemic, in terms of the incidence and prevalence of the disease, as well as inequal access to new medical advances and life-saving therapeutics for thos...
The idea to have a special issue on literary representations of pandemics past and present emanated from a bigger project that four colleagues-Thabisani Ndlovu, Irikidzayi Manase, Cheryl Stobie, and Robert Muponde-were working on at the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study (STIAS) in November 2020. The title of the project, "Text, Human Rights and Pandemics: Being Human in Times of Contagion," and the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic, signalled our search for a conceptual space to consider the role of cultural representations of pandemics over time and what these have to say about text, contagion, ideas and performances of being human. Texts in that broader project included but were not limited to personal narratives, newspaper articles, literary texts, WhatsApp chats, blogs, and communication on other electronic platforms such as Twitter. The multiplicity of sources reflected the virality of pandemic texts, particularly that they are "as much about the powerful circulation of ideas, emotions, or affects as about disease agents" (Nixon and Servitje 2016, vi). This special issue, however, confines itself to texts of a literary nature, but it too, like the bigger project, has a broad view of contagion or pandemics as both literal and figurative. As Cooke (2009, 1) points out, "contagion is not only literal" but has "a textual and metaphoric construction," which means that there are apparent and "hidden" pandemics.
What Literature Tells Us about the Pandemic
Journal of Critical Studies in Language and Literature, 2020
Literature can play an important role in shaping our responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. It can offer us significant insights into how individuals treated the trauma of pandemics in the past, and how to survive in a situation beyond our control. Considering the changes and challenges that the coronavirus might bring for us, we should know that the world we are living in today is shaped by the biological crisis of the past. This understanding can help us deal with the challenges in the current pandemic situation. Literature can show us how the crisis has affected the lives of infected individuals. By exploring the theme of disease and pandemic, which is consistent and well-established in literature (Cooke, 2009), we come across a number of literary works dealing with plagues, epidemics and other forms of biological crises. Among the prominent examples of pandemic literature is Albert Camus’s The Plague (1947), narrating the story of a plague sweeping the French Algerian city of Oran....
Anthropology's response to the West African Ebola epidemic was one of the most rapid and expansive anthropological interventions to a global health emergency in the discipline's history. This article sets forth the size and scale of the anthropological response and describes the protagonists, interventions , and priorities for anthropological engagement. It takes an inclusive approach to anthropological praxis by engaging with the work of nonanthro-pologist " allies, " including qualitative researchers, social workers, and allied experts. The article narrates how the concept of " anthropology " came to serve as a semantic marker of solidarity with local populations, respect for customary practices and local sociopolitical realities, and an avowed belief in the capacities of local populations to lead localized epidemic prevention and response efforts. Of particular consideration is the range of complementary and conflicting epistemological, professional, and critical engagements held by anthropologists. The article also discusses how to assess anthropological " impact " in epidemics. 421