May 5 – May 12
“Medical anthropology weekly: COVID-19” is a weekly compilation of COVID-19-related materials across text, audio, and video formats focused on medical anthropology and neighboring disciplines. The project is a collaboration between Society for Medical Anthropology, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, and Somatosphere. Each is cross-posted on all three websites and distributed over multiple channels.
For this issue, we’ve included a few key earlier pieces which were left out of our first issue.
If you’d like to suggest a piece to be listed in an upcoming issue, please add it to this public spreadsheet. Please email your questions to medanthroweekly@gmail.com.
Series
- MAQ COVID-19 Responses | Medical Anthropology Quarterly
- Witnessing Corona | a joint project of Blog Medizinethnologie, Curare: Journal of Medical Anthropology, Global South Studies Center Cologne, and boasblogs
- Dispatches from the pandemic | Somatosphere
- The Age of COVID-19 | Association for Anthropology, Gerontology and the Life Course (AAGE)
- COVID-19 webinars | American Anthropological Association, Society for Medical Anthropology, Anthropological Responses to Health Emergencies SIG
- Covid-19, Fieldsights | Cultural Anthropology
- Pandemic Diaries | American Ethnologist
- Pandemic Insights | Anthropology News
- COVID-19: Views from the Field | Platypus – The CASTAC Blog
- Corona | Allegra Lab
- Fieldwork in a Time of Coronavirus | anthro{dendum}
- The Covid-19 Chronicles | Discover Society
- Consciously Quarantined | UCL Medical Anthropology
- Corona Times | Institute for Humanities in Africa at the University of Cape Town
- The Viral Condition | Identities Virtual Symposium
- COVID-19 Dispatches | Africa is a Country
- Corona Chronicles: Voices from the Field | Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Kyoto University
- Corona and Climate | Sydney Environment Institute
- COVIDCalls | Scott Knowles | podcast
- Collecting COVID-19 | Haidy Geismar and Hannah Knox | UCL Centre for Digital Ethnography
- Thinking in a Pandemic | Boston Review
- Posts from the Pandemic | Critical Inquiry
- Quarantine Journal | The Point Magazine
- Stories from a Pandemic | The Nocturnists | podcast
Resources
- #coronavirussyllabus | Alondra Nelson, crowd-sourced | SSRC | syllabus
- COVID-19 Resources | American Anthropological Association
- COVID-19 Resources | Anthropological Responses to Health Emergencies SIG
- Pandemic Perspectives: Responding to COVID-19 | Michael C. Ennis-McMillan and Kristin Hedges, eds. | Open Anthropology
- MAT Virtual Issue: Outbreaks, Epidemic, and Infectious Diseases | Cristina Moreno Lozano, ed. | Medicine Anthropology Theory
- Covid-19 and the Social Sciences | Social Science Research Council
- COVID-19 documents and briefings | Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform
- COVID-19 Resources for Sociologists | American Sociological Association
- COVID-19 Pandemic Resources | Consortium of Social Science Associations
- Structural Competency Resources | Structural Competency
- Sociology of Disability & COVID-19 resource list | Laura Mauldin, crowd-sourced
- Feminist Resources on the Pandemic | Centre for Feminist Foreign Policy
- Public collection of COVID-19 Citations | Yale University Medical Library
- The Politics of COVID-19 | The Syllabus | reading lists
The social and human sciences and the pandemic
- Dealing with a Global Pandemic in an Interconnected World | Admire Mare | Kujenga Amani, SSRC | text | knowledge, sociology of absences, risk society, Africa
- Episode 31.1: Adia Benton | Adia Benton (guest) and Timothy Neale (host) | Conversations in Anthropology | audio – podcast | global health, virality, relevance
- Ethnography At An Impasse? Fieldwork Reflections During A Pandemic | Elise Hjalmarson, Nina Teresa Kiderlin, and Sonja Ruud | Allegra Lab | text | ethnography, fieldwork, research, ethics, methods
- Fieldwork and the Nation Under Threat: Rethinking Critique, Recentering Relationships | Josh Babcock | anthro{dendum} | text | ethnography, fieldwork, critique, Singapore
Politics of life and death
- Disasters and capitalism…and COVID-19. | Vincanne Adams | Somatosphere | text | disaster capitalism, healthcare, United States
- Healthcare systems overcome – the virulence of COVID-19 | Ayo Wahlberg | Identities | text | biopolitics, virulence, public health
- Amid the Pandemic, a Killing, Arrests and Crackdown on Freedom | Marites Dañguilan Vitug | Corona Chronicles: Voices from the Field | text | politics, governance, state violence, Philippines
- Inevitablism, structural violence, and militarist logic in the Philippines during the Pandemic | Clarissa Ruzol | Ugnayang Pang-Aghamtao, Anthropological Association of the Philippines | text | governance, structural violence, Hegel, Philippines
- The biopolitics of pandemic citizenship | Adil Hossain | Discover Society | text | nationalism, xenophobia, biopolitics, biological citizenship, India
- Shifting perspectives on Covid-19: the apocalypse has already happened | Susana Fabre | Corona Times | text | apocalypse, war on drugs, violence, Mexico
- Corona, how are you? | P. Wenzel Geissler and Ruth J. Prince | Africa is a Country | text | history, colonialism, global health, ethnography, Kenya
Patient experiences, vulnerabilities, and mental health
- Very, very mild: Covid-19 symptoms and illness classification | Felicity Callard | Somatosphere | text | illness narratives, symptoms, patient experience
- The Pre-Existing Vulnerabilities of Patients With Rare Disorders in Poland During a Global Pandemic | Ma?gorzata Rajtar | Witnessing Corona, Blog Medizinethnologie & boasblogs | text | autoimmune disease, lupus, vulnerability, Poland
- Kenya can’t afford to neglect people with underlying conditions during COVID-19 | Edna N Bosire | The Conversation US | text | comorbidity, HIV/AIDS, TB, public health, Kenya
- Considerations and Principles for Shielding People at High Risk of Severe Outcomes from COVID-19 | Nadia Butler and Olivia Tulloch | Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform | text – briefing | vulnerability, low- and middle-income countries, risk, recommendations
- COVID-19 and the Apocalypse | Scott Knowles (host), Charles Strozier (guest) | COVIDCalls | audio – podcast | psychology, history, disaster
Public health and governance
- Models v. Evidence | Jonathan Fuller | Boston Review | text | philosophy of science, epidemiology, modeling
- Sweden’s Relaxed Approach to COVID-19 Isn’t Working | Adele Lebano | Boston Review | text | governance, public health, Sweden
- Pandemics Show Us What Government is For | Susan Erikson | Nature | text |governance, public health
- Betting on Pandemic | Susan Erikson | Medical Anthropology | text | governance, finance
- Public Health Across the Pacific | Jim Yong Kim and Warwick Anderson (guests), Christopher Lydon (host) | Radio Open Source | audio – podcast | public health, governance, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand
- A Panel on COVID-19 | Danielle Allen, Govind Persad, Paul Farmer, Allison Stanger | Harvard University Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics | video – webinar | ethics, governance, social medicine
- Contagious Crisis | Arthur Kleinman, Megan Murray, and David Jones (guests), Christopher Lydon (host) | Radio Open Source | audio – podcast | clinical perspective, public health, history
- COVID-19 reveals weak health systems by design: Why we must re-make global health in this historic moment | Sriram Shamasunder, Seth M. Holmes, Tinashe Goronga, Hector Carrasco, Elyse Katz, Raphael Frankfurter, and Salmaan Keshavjee | Global Public Health | text | global health equity, governance
- Preparedness and Unpreparedness: The Military vs. Medicine | Meredith Rosenthal and David Jones | Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics | text – whitepaper | preparedness, history, public health, ethics
- Not on the Beach, or Death in Bondi? | Warwick Anderson | Somatosphere | text | racism, social distancing, public health, Australia
- To Reopen Safely we need a “Health Force” of Disease Detectives | Sandy Smith-Nonini | Common Dreams | text | contact tracers, quarantine, public health
- COVID-19 and the Turn to Magical Thinking | Hugh Gusterson | Sapiens | text | magic, politics, protest, firearms, US
- Covid-19: Social Distancing and Lockdown in Black Townships in South Africa | Godfrey Maringira | Kujenga Amani, SSRC | text | distancing, lockdown, inequality, poverty, South Africa
- Crisis and Resistance at the Periphery: Bosnian responses to Covid-19 | Marina Veli?kovi? | Critical Legal Thinking | text | governance, crisis, law, Bosnia
- Trench Warfare of Mindsets in Switzerland’s Approach to The COVID-19 Pandemic | Annick M.I. Python and Samira S. Hüsler | Consciously Quarantined | text | governance, public health, Switzerland
- A cidadania vertical no Brasil: o caso do Coronavírus [Vertical citizenship in Brazil: the case of Coronavirus] | Marcelo da Silveira Campos | antropoLÓGICAS EPIDÉMICAS / Boletim ANPOCS | text | citizenship, “vertical isolation”, inequality, Brazil | Portuguese
- As taxas de letalidade da COVID-19 e o afrouxamento das quarentenas [The lethality rates of COVID-19 and the loosening of quarantines] | Everson Fernandes Pereira | antropoLÓGICAS EPIDÉMICAS / Boletim ANPOCS | text | fatality rates, subnotification, politics of numbers | Portuguese
Caregivers and healthcare workers
- What the virus reveals about caregivers | Arthur Kleinman | New York Daily News | text | healthcare workers, caregiving, medicine, nursing
- Healthcare workers are still coming under attack during the coronavirus pandemic | Sophie Roborgh and Larissa Fast | The Conversation UK | text | violence, health care workers
- Stigma and the Logics of Wartime | Arthur Rose and Luna Dolezal | Covid-19, Fieldsights, Cultural Anthropology | text | metaphor, war, stigma, health care workers, NHS, UK
- The Irruption of Care, or Facing a Pandemic in Times of Revolution | Gabriela Cabaña | Covid-19, Fieldsights, Cultural Anthropology | text | politics, care, labor, health care workers, Chile
Structural violence, racism, inequality, and incarceration
- When Blackness is a Preexisting Condition | Kimberlé Crenshaw | The New Republic | text | structural violence, racism
- How Racism Is Shaping the Coronavirus Pandemic | Isaac Chotiner & Evelynn Hammonds | The New Yorker | text | racism, history, United States
- Black Skin, White Masks: Racism, Vulnerability & Refuting Black Pathology | Ruha Benjamin | COVID-19 seminar series, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) and the Deakin Science and Society Network (SSN) | video – lecture, webinar | racism, inequality, vulnerability
- Structural Inequity, Racial and Ethnic Disparities and Infectious Diseases: Are There Solutions? | Bisola Ojikutu | Global Health Grand Rounds, Massachusetts General Hospital Center for Global Health | video – webinar | health disparities, racism, social determinants of health
- Racial Health Disparities and Covid-19 — Caution and Context | Merlin Chowkwanyun and Adolph L. Reed | The New England Journal of Medicine | text | health disparities, racism, social determinants of health, United States
- Global racial capitalism as a fundamental cause of Covid-19 disease disparities in the world | Whitney Pirtle | Contexts Blog | text | racial capitalism, racism, inequality, health disparities
- The Abolition Geographies of COVID-19 | Madeleine Hamlin | Society and Space | text | incarceration, housing, racism, US
- COVID-19: Why Are Prisons a Particular Risk, and What Can Be Done to Mitigate This? | Leslie Jones | Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform | text – briefing | incarceration, low- and middle-income countries, risk, recommendations
- Prison as the Problem, Prison as the Cure | David Thompson | Covid-19, Fieldsights, Cultural Anthropology | text | incarceration, risk, US, Brazil
- Ciências e tecnologias na pandemia de Covid-19: exposições, experimentos, expectativas [Sciences and technologies in the Covid-19 pandemic: exposures, experiments, expectations] | Rosana Castro | Boletim ANPOCS | text | science, experiments, racism, inequality | Portuguese
- Social-Medicine: Response to COVID-19 | Paul Farmer, Louise Ivers, Vanessa Kerry, Megan Murray | COVID-19 Webinar Series, Harvard Medical School Department of Global Health and Social Medicine | video – webinar | social medicine, structural violence, clinical experience
- Structural Competency Innovations and Opportunities in the Era of COVID-19 Part 3: Global Responses | Eloho Akpovi, Jayinee Basu, Helena Hansen, Tinashe Goronga, Seth Holmes, Kelly Knight, Cara McGuinness, Jonathan Metzl, Josh Neff, Francisco Ortega, Lillian Walkover (hosts); Monica McLemore, Adsa Fatima, Saraswathi Vedam, Charity Emehill Bartels, Ana Lucia Pontes, Jon Lascher, Bailor Barrie, Gabriela Di Croce, Wani Michael, Marian Mandache, Axolile Notywala, Givania Silva, Marcela Castro Garrido (guests) | video – webinar | indigenous mobilization, reproductive justice, segregation, media, grassroots public health, structural, structural violence, racism, disparities, vulnerability | Part 1, Part 2
Outbreak narratives, xenophobia and disease stigma
- Contagion: COVID-19, the Outbreak Narrative, and Why We Need to Change the Story | Priscilla Wald | COVID-19 seminar series, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) and Deakin Science and Society Network (SSN) | video – lecture, webinar | outbreak narratives
- A Disease Origin Story: And its Afterlife | Elizabeth Krause and Massimo Bressan | Vestoj | text | xenophobia, solidarity, economy, Chinese migrants, Italy
- “In Beijing They Eat Snakes And Then Pig Out”: Xenophobia, Geopolitics, and the Role of the Italian Far-Right in Covid-19 Constructions of China | Francesco Floris | Consciously Quarantined | text | politics, xenophobia, China, Italy
- Covid-19, Ebola and political community | Ato Kwamena Onoma | Corona Times | text | migration, xenophobia, Ebola, biopolitics, Senegal
- The Emergence of COVID19: A Multispecies Story | Eben Kirksey | COVID-19 seminar series, Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation (ADI) and the Deakin Science and Society Network (SSN) | video – lecture, webinar | multispecies, outbreak narratives, Orientalism
Information, communication, and affect
- The Covid-19 ‘Infowhelm’ | Heather Houser | The New York Review of Books | text | communication, information
- Infodemic | Gill Partington | The Polyphony | text | information, fake news, conspiracy theories, metaphor
- COVID-19, Risk, Fear, and Fall-out | Lenore Manderson and Susan Levine | Medical Anthropology | text | panic, fear
- The COVID-19 Pandemic: Making Sense of Rumor and Fear | Inayat Ali | Medical Anthropology | text | measles, Pakistan
- Shared Isolation and Digital Connectedness in the United States | Morris Fabbri | Witnessing Corona, Blog Medizinethnologie & boasblogs | text/images | social media, communication, United States
Sociality and solidarity
- What’s in a Mask? | Clare M. Wilkinson | Pandemic Insights, Anthropology News | masks, performance, craft practice, US
- Muslim NGOs Facing Covid-19 In France #Muhum | Lucas Faure | Allegra Lab | text | NGOs, Muslim humanitarianism, France
Migration, labor, and precarity
- Coronavirus Is Killing the Hope of Asylum | Isabella Alexander-Nathani | Sapiens | text | migration, refugees, Europe
- “We Cannot Afford to Take Any Risks”: Refugees in Indonesia under Self-Isolation amidst COVID-19 Pandemic | Mahardhika Sjamsoe’oed Sadjad | Witnessing Corona, Blog Medizinethnologie & boasblogs | text | refugees, migration, vulnerability, Indonesia
- A Lesson In Composure: Learning From Migrants In Times Of Covid-19 | Christian Ungruhe | Consciously Quarantined | text | migrants, Ghana
- Crowd, Contagion, Corona | Nusrat Sabina Chowdhury | Covid-19, Fieldsights, Cultural Anthropology | text | crowds, migration, biopolitics, affect, Bangladesh
- Invisible Lives: The ‘Place’ Of Migrant Workers During The Covid-19 Pandemic | Alice Butler-Warke and Caroline Hood | Discover Society | text | migrant labor, UK, Singapore
- Covid-19 and displaced Syrians’ livelihoods along the Turkey-Syria border | Ann-Christin Wagner, Anas Al Kaddour, Shaher Abdullateef, Lisa Boden | Corona Times | text | migration, mobility, Syria, Turkey
- Essentializing Labor Before, During, and After COV-19 | Deepa Das Acevedo | Exertions: SAW Blog | text | labor, law, classification, capitalism, class
Everyday life under quarantine and after
- The state is back: Chronicles from the Italian lockdown | Alonso Del Percio | Disruptive Inequalities | text | lockdown, migration, police violence
- Paris, a Deserted – Quiet City? | Artemis Skrepeti | Witnessing Corona, Blog Medizinethnologie & boasblogs | text/images | everyday life, distancing, sociality, France
- If Meat Could Tell Stories: A Tale Of Assam During Coronavirus | Rituparna Patgiri | Allegra Lab | food, vegetarianism, India
- Another Day in Dystopia. Italy in the Time of COVID-19 | Roberta Raffaetà | Medical Anthropology | text | dystopia, Italy
- Wine Spirit | Stan Papoulias | The Polyphony | text | everyday life under quarantine, haunting, disinfection
- How Rituals and Focus Can Turn Isolation Into a Time for Growth | Arthur Kleinman | The Wall Street Journal | text (paywall) | quarantine, isolation, care
- Tea Without Sugar as a Remedy Against Covid-19? Impressions from Al-Mafaza, Eastern Sudan | Elnazir Mustafa | Witnessing Corona, Blog Medizinethnologie & boasblogs | text | everyday life, remedies, ritual, Sudan
- Faith, Politics and the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Turkish Response | O?uz Alyanak | Medical Anthropology | text | religion, politics, Islam, Turkey
Learning from history
- Is the pandemic a revolution? | Keith Hart | Corona Times | text | history, revolution, social change
- How Pandemics End | Gina Kolata | New York Times | text | history, end of disease
- Biomedical Research in Times of Emergency: Lessons From History | Deborah Doroshow, Scott Podolsky, and Justin Barr | Annals of Internal Medicine | text | emergency, research, ethics
- Historical Lessons: Pox and Covid-19 | Rina Knoeff | The Polyphony | text | history
- The Temporal Politics of Ethnography, Heritability, and Contagion in Tanzania During Covid-19 | Rebekah Ciribassi | Platypus – The CASTAC Blog | text | sickle-cell disease, colonialism, nation, contagion, temporality, Tanzania
- Medieval Europe’s waves of plague also required an economic action plan | Kriston R. Rennie | The Conversation US | text | plague, history, governance, Europe
- Pandemics come and go. The way people respond to them barely changes. | Mary E. Fissell | Washington Post | text | history, bubonic plague, history
- Past and Present: Can India Beat Corona the Way It Beat Smallpox? | Harish Naraindas | The India Forum | text | history, smallpox, public health, India
- The Cruise Ship as Disease Heterotopia | Lisa Diedrich | Nursing Clio | text | history, cruises, biopolitics
- Brazil, Corona, and the History of Epidemics | Patricia Lorenzoni | Discover Society | text | history, indigeneity, colonialism, Brazil
Environment and the Anthropocene
- Virus Time | Killian Quigley | Sydney Environment Institute | text | temporality, language, climate change, narrative, inequality
- Have Some Mental Health: The Black Summer Bushfires, COVID-19, and the Governance of Psychic Retreat | Aaron Neiman | Engagement | text | catastrophe, climate change, fire, mental health, natural disasters, Australia
Teaching and learning
- Teaching in the Times of Corona: Structural Inequalities and the Limitations of Online Pedagogy in North East India | Achuth Ajit | Witnessing Corona, Blog Medizinethnologie & boasblogs | text | inequalities, education, gender, infrastructure, India
- Video conferencing and the limits of representability | Christian Elliott | anthro{dendum} | text | video conferencing, technology, remote learning
- Covid-19, (In)visible Mothers, and the State | Lindsay Donaldson | Covid-19, Fieldsights, Cultural Anthropology | text | everyday life, primary education, distance learning, motherhood, migration, family, United States
- Limiting Life for an Unlimited Time – A Student’s Perspective | Eva Steinberger | Witnessing Corona, Blog Medizinethnologie & boasblogs | text | higher education, everyday life, temporality, Germany
- COVID-19 Stories: How PhD Students are Experiencing Disruption And Uncertainty During The Pandemic | Vas Papageorgiou, Lidia Luna Puerta, and Will Kendall | Consciously Quarantined | text | higher education, everyday life, precarity