CV04. Politics: Politics of Social Distancing, CV05. Economics: Compassion and Sacrifice, CV07. Emergence: Bingo, CV15. Death: Hiding CV Data, CV16. Consequences, Social Change: Pause for Reflection, Self Congratulations, CV18. Narrative, Social Reality: Denial, CV23. Polemic, Myphysis: TCM Soft Power, Dense Ethnography, Messaging, CV24. Norms: Ethical Inversions, Ironical Ideal and Real, CV27. Learning: Medical Anthropology, CV28. Logistics: Lack of Supplies Denial, CV31. Futuring: Next Three Month Indicators, CV32. Anthromes: Perception of Cities
PDN Introduction.
CV04. Politics: Do Political Beliefs Affect Social Distancing. People were being asked to comply with things that were very costly to them. The question was: Why would they do that.
-A. Republican governors who communicated the seriousness of COVID-19 in early March, a period during which the right leaning media and Trump were skeptical of the risk, had a much stronger effect on behavior of people in Democratic leaning counties within their states than on the behavior of people in Republican leaning counties. This was the point in time when the national Republican consensus was to downplay the severity of the virus, so a Republican who's willing break ranks sends a very strong message that this is something that we need to get serious about, and in particular Democrats are very receptive to that kind of message.
CV05. Economics: Compassion and Sacrifice During COVID-19. Understanding of compassion opens up a threefold role for anthropologists* during the ongoing pandemic. They may want to empirically study compassion as a value, asking what place it holds in different sociocultural settings, whether and how it may be created or diminished and how it links to other values. Secondly, they can assess whether the arguments made in favor or against compassion are actually logically sound. Third, anthropologists can comment on whether people who claim to foster compassion either in word or deed are in fact living up to it. Each of these three potential goals of anthropological study – conceptual clarification, assessment of the rationale behind given values, and assessment of thoughts and actions in light of a given value – is particularly urgent at the moment.
-*A. One of the characteristics of global disasters is turning social structures topsy turvy. British Anthropology had, in part, the propose of supporting colonial administration. No longer a colonial empire. Now the ethnographic methodologies evolved then are turned toward Britain.
-B. Sacrifice is one of the key concepts that currently determines the limits of compassion. It points to the pervasiveness of economic thought in public discourse, as the idea of sacrifice features heavily in classical and neo classical theories of exchange, value and labour. Capitalist human sacrifice happens to be unequally distributed. While wealthy groups and individuals can shelter themselves from the economy’s negative health effects, the existential and economic precarity of most workers leads them to have a lower average life expectancy. This is true on a global scale, where people born in countries with lower GDP and higher social inequality tend to lead shorter lives. It is also true on a national scale. In England for example, life expectancy between the wealthiest 20% and the poorest 20% of people differs by almost eight and a half years.
CV07. Emergence: The Power of Bingo During Covid-19 CV08 CV12. Stories of bingo play during the pandemic abound online. Neighbourhoods across Englandhave joined together to play bingo in the streets, with many offering cleaning supplies and toilet paper as pandemic coveted prizes. Young housemates in Amsterdam called bingo through a megaphone to the retirement community across the road, where older adults eagerly played from balconies. And Matthew McConaughey announced bingo by Zoom for residents quarantining at The Enclave, an assisted living community in Round Rock, Texas. As more videos of bingo games emerge from India to Spain, the game’s global popularity in this pandemic becomes increasingly clear. =2= =3= =4=. [Card =2= =3= CV11, Photo]
CV15. Death: Asia's Hidden Deaths: Coronavirus Fatalities Are Being Covered up and Undercounted. The global public is at risk because the true picture of the spread of Covid-19 in India and Pakistan is unknown. Probably true, and probably due to both not having the means and self serving governments CV18↓ CV28↓, but under counts has been found to be the case world wide, I'm Looking for the Truth: States Face Criticism for Covid-19 Data Cover Ups. Nearly Half of US States Haven't Contained Their Coronavirus Outbreaks.
-A. It is possible that this may not be true. The tendency for poor countries with well off elites is more likely to exaggerate numbers for more opportunities for graft. It is also not easy to keep CV data after several years of underfunding and current constant politically created uncertainty of supply and resistance to data and science. CV31↓.
CV16. Consequences, Social Change: What We’ve Learnt from the Great Pause. From birdsong and clearer skies to acts of great kindness, there's a lot to celebrate from being holed up for two months. Our whole attitude to consumerism has changed. Psychologists reckon it takes 21 days to create a new habit. Well, lockdown afforded us that time. Unable to ‘just pop to the supermarket’ or to secure the self isolation Holy Grail – an online shopping delivery – we learnt how to shop less often. Millions began to use local greengrocers and butchers using fresh, locally sourced ingredients into delicious meals. At long last, we had time to look inside those recipe books we’ve been giving each other every Christmas for 20 years. Weaned off ready meals and posh nibbles, we discovered it was possible to eat better than before and for a third of the weekly spend. With so many small businesses facing ruin, there was a real sense of satisfaction in buying cheese from a farmer with a name and a family rather than a faceless brand. Plenty of us have broken the habit; we are never going back to the old, heedless, pile the trolley high way of shopping.
-A. I exaggerate, of course, and my roots and I miss my hairdresser more than I can say, but there’s nothing like a pandemic to teach you what’s truly important (and what isn’t). Food, shelter and love are pretty much all we need. Then comes music, singing, sewing, crayonning, crafting, cooking, painting rainbows, imagining, volunteering, pets, power washing, neighbourliness, exercise, games and gardening. CV04 CV05 CV06 CV07 CV08 CV27 CV28.
-B. Having enjoyed the peace and the fresh fresh air, will we become better custodians of the Earth? In the short term, it’s more likely that urgent economic considerations will drive us back to our noisy, filthy ways. And yet there will be a heightened awareness of the natural world that will make us more reluctant to treat this blessed plot as a rubbish dump. We liked hearing the birds sing.
-D. Well written and heart felt. However, with all due respect I disagree. Hopefully there will be good from this. The reality is that Europe, North America and other developed countries may have had an opportunity to self reflect, to feel rueful about what they thought was once important, to suffer loss and experience grief. But what of the rest of the world who were already in desperate survival mode before CV, who already had nothing, for who grief is a constant. We did not learn anything if we still believe we should congratulate ourselves. CV18↓.
CV18. Narrative, Social Reality: Apocalypse Never: What Coronavirus Teaches Us about Doomsday Denial. COVID-19 has shown us that the apocalypse story paradigm is incomplete in a fairly surprising way: Even when the impacts of the apocalypse are overwhelmingly visible, people will still try to deny the reality. It’s likely that the denial we're experiencing now would also emerge amidst other global cataclysms, even a nuclear war or an incoming asteroid strike. CV28↓.
CV23. Polemic, Myphysis: How to Make Sense of “Traditional (Chinese) Medicine” In a Time of Covid-19: Cold War* Origin Stories and the WHO’s Role in Making Space for Polyglot Therapeutics. A seemingly small side story to the coronavirus pandemic received some media coverage in the U.S. over the last few weeks, though most people probably missed it. It has to do with the way Xi Jinping’s government has supported and even pushed “traditional medicines” in its response to Covid-19. Given the urgency of the moment and the need for accurate information about the disease – including worldwide struggles with an “infodemic” that has accompanied the pandemic – it would be easy to assume that any focus on “traditional medicine” is a distraction at best and a danger at worst. In fact, this is the underlying message of two articles published by CNN and Breitbart news, with the respective headlines, “Beijing Is Promoting Traditional Medicine as a ‘Chinese Solution’ to Coronavirus: Not Everyone is on Board,” and “China Pressures Africa to Embrace ‘Traditional Medicine’ Coronavirus Cures”. As might be expected, these articles pit “science based medical communities,” characterized as trading in real diagnoses and effective treatments, against China’s state based initiatives on “traditional medicines,” which are described as having scant evidence or scientific backing to support them. The Breitbart article goes even further, suggesting without any irony that China’s Communist Party is simply working to enrich itself and its state pharmaceutical companies by peddling ineffective products overseas as part of its propaganda machine.
-*A. China Warns U.S. Taking World to Brink of 'New Cold War' over Coronavirus. CV is a new reason the issue, but not the first time China has made the accusation CV22.
The ratcheting up of tensions comes as Beijing is hounded by questions over alleged missteps in its initial response to contain the virus.
-B. It’s hardly a surprise to find journalists covering these subjects in scripted and polarized ways CV18: Conventional medicine is characterized as good, i.e. necessary, essential, and the only thing that will and can save us (even if opinions may be divided on strategy), while traditional medicine is characterized as suspect, i.e. snake oil, pseudoscience, and a possible danger to us all (even if it’s still widely used). Breitbart’s coverage seems to be part of a wider conservative effort in the U.S. to shift the focus and the blame to China, so that the country’s politics and its people simultaneously come under extra scrutiny: conservatives’ talking points now refer to China’s oppressive political tactics (which they allege led to delays in epidemiological reporting and control measures) and dangerous foodways (which they say allow zoonotics to emerge and wildlife to be culled to extinction). These issues are not made up out of thin air, but they are taken out of context and used to fan xenophobic alarm and jingoistic sensibilities. Focusing on China’s use of “traditional medicines” is one more way to call into question the country’s standing on the world stage, including its rationality. It also happens to be an effective way to pivot people (read voters) CV04 – who have little background knowledge of viruses, pandemics, global health, medical cultures, or history – away from the fact that the US executive branch has actively obstructed a coordinated federal response to the pandemic. This deception game of pivot-deflect, of course, runs both ways as Chinese media outlets and spokespeople have called into question the Chinese origin of the virus and worked to rewrite parts of the pandemic’s history, while also tamping down on public debate and dissent.
CV24. Norms: Ethical Inversions Due to Covid-19: Pandemic and Local Ironies in Managing Responsibilities. Irony CV02 is juxtaposition of two facts that when known are incongruous. For example societies that have equalitarian ideals and are in an ethical position to making equal sacrifice such as shelter in place, but that exposes reality of inequalities =2= =3=. [Photo] CV29.
CV27. Learning: How to Teach Anthropology in a Pandemic. Every spring semester class was impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic, which instituted campus lockdowns around the world and forced instruction to move online or to be halted altogether.
-A. Medical Anthropology might be the rare college course that was actually deepened and enriched by the life altering circumstances of the pandemic, since it focuses on the interconnectedness of disease CV21 CV26, the body politic CV04, and the arts CV09 of care, as well as the power of storytelling CV18 in the face of the unknown CV17. Amidst all kinds of uncertainties CV17 Medical Anthropology has creatively CV09 transitioned CV07 to online instruction CV19. Drawing from history CV22, critical theory CV30, ethnography CV30, and the arts CV09, becaming a forum to grapple with the multifaceted medical, social CV All, and political CV04 - economic CV05 challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic.
-B. Turbulent social forces made key medical anthropology concepts: Structural violence CV23, racialization (othering), technologies CV19 of invisibility, local biologies CV32, body techniques, human plasticity, experimentality, pharmaceuticalization, and technologies CV19 of caregiving.
-C. Parademic is not Medical Anthropology, but overlaps with it, along with borrowing concepts from other disciplines. Parademic is Anthropology applied disaster studies, specifically the biocalamity (both natural and anthropogenic), apply the five fields of Archaeology (infrastructure CV01 CV03 CV05 CV08 CV19 CV20 CV25 CV28 CV32), Human Biology (which is part of the whole biosphere CV12 CV15 CV21 CV26 CV32), Ethnography CV All, Folklore (narrative CV02 CV03 CV06 CV07 CV08 CV10 CV18 CV22 CV24 CV27 CV31), and Linguistics (Coding CV02 CV30 CV04 CV05 CV09 CV10 CV15 CV18 CV20 CV 22 CV24 CV27 CV33.
CV28. Logistics: Democratic Leaders Say Trump Testing Strategy Is 'To Deny the Truth' about Lack of Supplies. CV04 CV18↑ CV29.
CV31. Futuring: How Summer Could Determine the Pandemic’s Future. Five things to watch on the road from lockdown to recovery. 1) Testing and contact tracing need to grow dramatically CV15A↑. 2) Businesses will have to show their virus savvy. 3) Consumer demand: You can reopen, but will people show up. 4) How will Trump message the crisis, misinformation. 5) The Fauci Factor valid information. There is a 6) of whether or not CV goes dormant this summer and if people interpret that to mean it is over, or that they have a few months to prepare for the next wave, or next pandemic. [ADDED Meme].
CV32. Anthromes: Coronavirus Has Changed Our Sense of Place, So Together We must Re-imagine Our Cities.
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