key: cord-0978838-m8myk3zm
authors: Soto Bermant, Laia; Ssorin‐Chaikov, Nikolai
title: Introduction: urgent anthropological COVID‐19 forum
date: 2020-05-19
journal: Soc Anthropol
DOI: 10.1111/1469-8676.12901
sha: ec6bdeb8b406d2bbabaec828533c3e3394eab30c
doc_id: 978838
cord_uid: m8myk3zm

nan

Introduction: urgent anthropological COVID-19 forum As increasing numbers of countries across the globe impose exceptional measures to confront the COVID-19 pandemic, we find ourselves facing an unprecedented (but predictable and, indeed, predicted) global emergency. While we can't yet know how exactly this rapidly changing situation will impact our everyday lives, we can already begin to grasp its magnitude at various scales.

During the global lockdown, satellite photographs have shown a significant reduction in CO 2 levels. Images of crystal-clear waters running through the canals of Venice and of wild animals venturing into the now-deserted urban landscapes invite thoughts of a number of possible post-apocalyptic scenarios or new worlds.

Meanwhile, strict surveillance techniques (Korea, Singapore) appear as the only viable alternative to the state of exception that has been imposed across the world in the fight against the epidemic crisis. Sweden stands alone in its reliance on voluntary measures, as the number of infected and dead continue to rise. National borders and solutions once again gain importance to the detriment of transnational alliances (EU, WHO). Gradual attempts to de-escalate the lockdown as the curve begins to 'flatten' in certain countries (China, Germany, the Czech Republic, Denmark) offer a glimpse of what the 'new normal' might look like.

For nearly two months now, we have been bombarded with numbers (of infected, of recovered, of dead) and new scientific advances (or hopes of these) every day. In this narrative construction, a series of potentially dangerous signifiers, some more familiar than others, have begun to stand out: 'quarantine', 'social distancing', 'sanitary crisis; 'death', 'virus', 'war', 'invisible enemy'. Yet, the sense of urgency that reaches us through the media often contrasts with the deceleration of our everyday lives, as we see our work and other 'normal' activities suspended.

Locked up at home, our sense of time-space compression is altered as well. Distances matter once again. We learn to greet each other with our elbows, we are told to stand two metres apart. Physical human contact stops or becomes highly exclusive. We learn to communicate via new means, sometimes across balconies, but mostly through the looking-glass of a computer screen. The social is reformulated through the virtual and new forms of solidarity emerge.

How are we to think through, rather than just chronicle, this reality emerging in front of our eyes? How can we come to grips with the different forms and experiences of this crisis given the different responses across countries and continents? Who gets to narrate this crisis? And what will happen after it? What are the longterm and short-term effects? What do we fear, and what do we hope for? What new conceptual and analytical tools do we need for understanding and engaging with this new reality?

As this is a global situation, reflection on it should be collective and global as well. To encourage this collective effort, we asked anthropologists worldwide to send us their thoughts on the present situation. We were overwhelmed by the positive response -clearly, we all needed a space to talk about this. Faced with over 200 submissions, we had a choice: either to select a very limited number of responses, or try to accommodate as many voices as possible. We decided on the latter, and made an effort to include contributions from all parts of the world. The resulting document is therefore not only a commentary on the present and an invitation to critically engage with what the future may hold, but also a testament to what anthropologists hailing from different corners of the globe lived through and thought about in these critical times.

The contributions range from works of creative writing to complex theoretical formulations, from deeply personal reflections to ethnographic accounts and political and economic analyses. Contributors come from all parts of the world and all walks of life, from established professors to undergraduate students. We thought about grouping the responses under a number of thematic clusters or headings to facilitate the reading, but, for reasons anthropologists are well familiar with, this categorisation turned out to be an impossible task.

Finally, we would like to note that this discussion could be viewed alongside other emerging fora where the pandemic is documented and debated. These range from collections of philosophers' reactions 1 to those of data and projects such as the World Pandemic Research Network. 2 There are COVID-19 archives that have created the genre of public histories of the contemporary. 3 There is also a growing field of anthropological reflections, including on the University College London medical and digital anthropology websites, 4 the Corona Times blog of the Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town, 5 the COVID-19 Forum of the collaborative website Somatosphere: Science, Medicine and Anthropology, 6 the online Editor's Forum of the journal Cultural Anthropology 7 and the ongoing webinars and related resources of the American Anthropological Association. 8

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