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23/03/20
 
About this blog
„Witnessing Corona“ is inviting contributions of max 2000 words that address questions of: – Social solidarity and moral blaming – Living a life in social and/or physical isolation – Unequal biosocial and/or psychological vulnerabilities – Political-economic implications for healthcare infrastructures – Historically contingent forms, possibilities, and risks of governmental intervention – And a host of […]
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Morris Fabbri
07/05/20
Shared Isolation and Digital Connectedness in the United States
Viewing the World Through My Timeline On Sunday, 8 March 2020, I scrolled past the following exchange in the “Dixie Chicks Fan Club,” (the name of the group has since changed), a GroupMe group containing 21 students and alumni from the same sports radio club at the University of Michigan.   Image 1: GroupMe Screenshot, […]
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Małgorzata Rajtar
06/05/20
The pre-existing vulnerabilities of patients with rare disorders in Poland during a global pandemic
The global race to find a vaccine and effective treatments for COVID-19 has already shown its side effects. In the UK and Poland patients with lupus, a rare, autoimmune disease and patient organizations have raised their concerns about the availability of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine (Boseley 2020; Godlewska 2020). In Poland, chloroquine is solely manufactured by […]
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Elnazir Mustafa
05/05/20
Tea Without Sugar as a Remedy Against Covid-19?
Impressions from Al-Mafaza, Eastern Sudan
Since the first corona case has been announced in Khartoum on 13 March 2020, people have been fairly alarmed. Everybody fears contracting the virus, my concern was a bit different though. Especially when there was a rumor that the Ministry of Education might decide to shut down the schools until further notice. I am a […]
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Izabella MainAnna Witeska-Młynarczyk
01/05/20
Corona-Ninjas and Corona-Hyenas
COVID-19 Rhetoric in Poland
Each word tastes of the context and contexts in which it has lived its socially charged life… Mikhail Bakhtin (1981:293) Different words and phrases have been invented during the coronavirus pandemic to impose order on the reality that is novel, chaotic, and unpredictable. The vocabulary people deploy in different local, national, and transnational contexts has […]
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Frances Williams
30/04/20
What’s in a (Welsh) Name?
Local Inflections on Corona Infection
Like other strange phenomena, that arrived with the virus in Europe, it happened in Italy first. People fled the North of the country for the South in the hope of escaping to a safer region. In the UK, the direction of travel has been the other way around, from the South to the more rural […]
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Anne Menzel
29/04/20
Positioniertheit im Gesundheitsnotstand
Wahrnehmungen, Auslassungen und Bewertungen im Kontext von Ebola und Corona
„Es ist wohl auch zu spät. Das Virus hat sich so weit verbreitet, dass es kaum noch hülfe, einzelne Regionen unter Quarantäne zu stellen. Die Gepflogenheiten der Einheimischen haben der Seuche ein leichtes Spiel beschert. Die Regierungen haben zu spät reagiert. Ohne ein massives Eingreifen der Behörden wird die Epidemie nicht zu besiegen sein. Dann […]
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Maribeth ErbKristina GroßmannNovia Tirta Rahayu TijajaNicole Weydmann
27/04/20
Singapore Nipped Things in the Bud
Germany Struggled with Delays
As has been widely reported, a novel coronavirus appeared in Wuhan, China in December 2019. Spreading rapidly through the city, and eventually the province of Hubei in January, countries and cities in the region started to implement travel restrictions in regards to Wuhan and eventually all of China. However, before its extremely infectious nature was […]
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Egor Novikov
25/04/20
Xenophobic Moods in the Wake of a Pandemic
Impressions from India
This note is born out of our exchange with my supervisor, professor William S. Sax, about our recent escapes from different parts of India, in the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Keeping in mind the Modi’s government’s abrupt manner of action, I decided to make my way back when things started to build up, and […]
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Dana Mahr
24/04/20
The Cultural Construction of the ‘Bizzare’
Disentangling Sinophobic Language in Media and Science During the COVID-19 Epidemic
The Wuhan virus, the Chinese virus, or SARS-CoV-2? Wording matters! I always treated the Chinese Virus very seriously, and have done a very good job from the beginning, including my very early decision to close the borders from China – against the wishes of almost all. Many lives were saved. The Fake News new narrative […]
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Chiara BrescianiGeoffrey Hughes
22/04/20
Virological Witch Hunts
Coronavirus and Social Control under Quarantine in Bergamo, Italy
Compilations of video clips of Italian mayors berating citizens breaking quarantine to walk dogs, jog, or play ping pong have become something of a ‘viral’ sensation both in Italy and globally. The clips are often amusing, featuring politicians accusing their constituents of vanity, incontinence, and other assorted sins. As anthropologists interested in the politics of […]
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