key: cord-1025298-qr9h7ax1 authors: Hardy, Lisa J. title: Negotiating Inequality: Disruption and COVID‐19 in the United States date: 2020-06-22 journal: City Soc (Wash) DOI: 10.1111/ciso.12312 sha: dec7d89c9bc6a3392b30719a96308443732967a0 doc_id: 1025298 cord_uid: qr9h7ax1 nan Since the inception of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States alone over 100,000 people have lost their lives to the virus. Early in the pandemic US leaders publicly used the racially charged terms of "Chinese Flu" and "Wuhan Coronavirus" to describe the pandemic (Gabbatt 2020 ), contributing to a rash of hate crimes against people of Asian descent (He et al., 2020) . Political and economic divisions are clear, with a current unemployment rate of 14.7% in the general population, and higher levels of death from COVID-19 among Black, Indigenous, People of Color than White counterparts (Dorn, Cooney & Sabin 2020) . Indigenous peoples have suffered higher numbers of death related to this pandemic, other epidemics, and health disparities now and throughout history due to vast inequalities (Powers et al., 2020) . In addition to the present dangers of contracting the virus and facing death or long-term health consequences, early research documents mental health concerns associated with social distancing and sheltering-inplace that could raise the rate of suicide and other major episodes of anxiety and depression in the short and long term (Holmes et al, 2020) . Economic despair is also paramount for people facing job loss and a depressed economy. 2 © 2020 by the American Anthropological Association. All rights reserved. DOI:10.1111/ciso.12312. Corrections added on July 4, 2020 after first online publication: The text 'One the one hand' has been corrected to 'On the one hand' and the author name 'Wolfe' has been corrected in reference section as well as in-text citation Against the backdrop of visible inequality related to COVID-19, police murdered Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Resulting uprisings to racialized police violence led to movement of people into public spaces while states invoked curfews and used legal force to move and remove protestors. Prior to the uprising, violent policing directed at Black, Indigenous, People of Color, and trans people across the nation caused lost lives. For many, this current political moment represents entangled histories and presents of the need for justice in the United States. People are negotiating meanings of place through avoidance, conflict, and reimagined meaning. This dispatch draws on data collected prior to the public outcry for justice, however the findings here are relevant to documenting and understanding how people were experiencing socio-spatial segregation during the first months of COVID-19 leading up to the current uprising of 2020. In the immediate weeks following the declaration of a global pandemic I conducted 30 phone interviews with people 18 and over living in the United States. Most of the interviewees were sheltering-in-place. Reflecting on the impact of COVID-19, Andre remembered life in public during the Ebola crisis: [COVID-19] reminded me of something that happened during the Ebola crisis. At that time it happened that the mall was closing down they had a sale going on and since I have an African accent I was talking to someone on my phone probably and there was a couple, an old white couple next to me in line and when [they] heard me speak they asked me 'are you from that Ebola country so we can move away from you' and these stories are emerging everywhere people are being wired to fear anyone who is next to them. And so this is going to change our psyche for a long time [emphasis mine]. Andre's experience is echoed in settler colonial narratives of avoidance and xenophobia related to contagion; a subject of concern for social scientists studying epidemics, pandemics, and inequality (on settler colonialism see Wolfe 2006 , and on xenophobia and epidemics see Onoma 2020 among others). During COVID-19, the Navajo Nation currently has the highest number of cases in the region of the United States (Dyer 2020) . Leaders in neighboring cities, however, allowed sheltering-in-place directives to expire and many White people returned to life as usual, along with ever-present and growing xenophobia about Native people as vectors of disease. In addition to the geographical and social spaces between groups, places of commerce have become areas of disagreement and tension. Social scientists and health professionals have been studying third places and connectedness long before the global pandemic of 2020 (Jeffres et al., 2009; Low & Smith 2005) . Conceptually, understanding third places is informative during life under a shadow of varying orders to stay at home, shelter-in-place, social distance, and disconnection from regular relationships (Low 2020) . Peripheral connections that occur between people occupying shared third spaces serve a valuable function in health, well-being, and distancing. Sharing time at a coffee shop, dog park, university campus, or airports serves as a source of social connectedness for those who are able to enter these spaces; a concept that has been explored by urban anthropologists, geographers, and others interested in theorizing cities (see for example Low & Smith 2005 and many others). In addition to socio-spatial segregation that occurs in third places, peripheral connections in third places impact health and well-being, and create connection and disconnection. In exploratory research on the impacts of COVID-19, social connection in public, specifically consumerist spaces, emerged as a site for contestations over rights to shared space and negotiations of identity. In 30 interviews with people living in the United States in March through May of 2020, people talked about the grocery store in nearly every interview as a site for recognized change. The grocery store has shifted from a place of reification of economic security for some to a scene for contagion and disconnection for others. For those who thought of the store as a pleasant place to feel economically and healthfully secure, this change stands out. People like Anne (a pseudonym) reflected on the absence of regular rituals. Before COVID-19 Anne would shop with her husband: "We probably enjoyed going to the grocery store five days a week. I like to cook and eat fresh foods." Ben, a retired man in the southwest said: [I] ran around to store any time of the day if I had a project I was looking at for the afternoon and had to get things at hardware store and get all my stuff ready for the project in the afternoon. Sometimes I develop a craving during the day for a certain item for dinner and if we don't have that in our pantry I will just impulsively go out and get it and make it. Retired people and young people alike spoke of rituals of going to the store daily for projects and healthy foods. Everyday activities that occurred in places of commerce became sights of nostalgia. Elle, a young woman living in an eastern city who was recovering from a presumed positive case of COVID-19 said, "I miss the ease of maintaining my life going to the grocery store is kind of a production it is pretty tiring." Like Elle, most participants talked about going to or avoiding grocery stores. A 52 year old white man named Eric living with a disability talked about life before the coronavirus pandemic when he would regularly go to the store: "I am addicted to grocery stores so I would usually stop at [two stores] to either pick up stuff to eat or the therapy of walking around in the grocery store looking at food." He thoughtfully considered why wandering the aisles of a store helped him to feel comfortable and well: I realized there is something that I enjoyed looking at food and buying food and having food on hand. I have a pantry that's always pretty full the refrigerator is always full. So. As long as there's money in my account I will go buy a little something every day. Something to drink or like I have addiction to salmon sashimi I frequently will sneak one of those and eat it without anybody knowing I have it other than the plastic container. Eric's reflections on this part of life were echoed throughout 30 other interviews. While people were dealing with much harsher realities including life threatening illnesses, deaths of loved ones in isolation, severe mental health challenges, and other crises, people who had the economic means to shop regularly missed activities of everyday life that helped to keep them well. Most of the people I spoke with who had the ability to move easily throughout consumerist spaces were aware of their difference and demonstrated distressing concern for their own or others' survival. Worries over the inability to do regular activities were communicated with an eye toward the knowledge that these activities were available to them because they could afford it, and the worry that unsheltered people were facing illness and loss of life from coronavirus at much higher rates. For most interviewees, however, the grocery store became a place where people experienced tense reminders of difference in a social landscape of life-or-death inequalities. The trip to the store, while remembered as a place of health and connection, had shifted into what one called "the big bad grocery store." The grocery store became a nexus of anxiety about contracting or passing the virus, and related as well to encountering people who were experiencing the pandemic differently. People shared numerous stories of tense interactions in stores between people who were more or less concerned about the virus shown through verbal interactions and arguments about distance and masks. One person observed the inability for others to follow directions when she laughed about a woman walking backwards down an aisle with traffic directing arrows so she could both follow the rules and go where she wanted to go. It was in the grocery stores that disagreements between two political ideologies played out in fights. On the one hand people wanted to distance and keep themselves and others well as a form of social responsibility. On the other, some wanted to intentionally stand close to others and refuse masks in order to perform what they discussed as their personal freedom. When asked about regular habits while sheltering-in-place, Jennie said, "I wear masks when I go grocery shopping. Earlier I bought groceries now I will not go to [store name] not even with a mask because a lot of these Native Americans shop there and they are the most effected by the COVID." Jennie's comments were not reflective of most other interviewees, though her sentiment that contagion related to outsiders was one that echoes blame of contagion throughout history (Onoma 2020). People in the region where she lives are not wearing masks even though one hour away others are experiencing illness and death and a rapidly increasing rate. While space grows between groups experiencing different forms of anxiety and violence of poverty and ongoing settler colonialism, many middle class people continue to look to third places for peripheral connectedness, However, if peripheral connectedness serves as a way to ease economic anxiety for people in tenuous positions even when they feel they may not be able to stay there. Third places are often exclusive to those who can afford them, creating a big unknown category of "the poor." This idea of the unknown is exacerbated by intentional decisions to avoid interacting with other people if they are presumed to be outsiders who are more dangerous because of their outsider status. While not overtly associated with race or ethnicity, John talked about reporting outsiders to a neighborhood board when he saw them around the neighborhood while also spending time with people he knew. The negotiations of space at the grocery store and elsewhere during the first months of COVID-19, and the rapidly growing understanding of health disparities among the general population gave way to different understandings of the relationships between place and wellness. The outcomes of this raised awareness can create a better understanding of poverty and inequality, and the momentum to join movements like Black Lives Matter. What is more concerning, and what reflects an historical trend related to contagion, is the racism that accompanies notions of survival and health equity. The idea that certain people from certain groups are more or less contagious not only obscures the reasons behind health inequities like structural racism, poverty, The Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism COVID-19 exacerbating inequalities in the US Covid-19: Black people and other minorities are hardest hit in US Republicans face backlash over racist labeling of coronavirus. The Guardian Discrimination and Social Exclusion in the Outbreak of COVID-19 Multidisciplinary Research Priorities for the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Call for Action for Mental Health Science The impact of third places on community quality of life Corrections added on July 4, 2020 after first online publication: The text 'One the one hand' has been corrected to 'On the one hand' and the author name 'Wolfe' has been corrected in reference section as well as in-text citation How cafes, bars, gyms, barbershops and other 'third places' create our social fabric. The Conversation The Politics of Public Space The great good place: Cafes, coffee shops, bookstores, bars, hair salons, and other hangouts at the heart of a community COVID-19 and Indigenous Peoples: An imperative for action Fugitive Poses: Native American Indian Scenes of Absence and Presence Settler colonialism and the elimination of the native