This article is part of the following series: Tracking Digital Psy
Pavel Égüez, “Cuarentena (Quarantine)” (2020), Oil paint on cardboard.In March 2020, the health and funerary system collapsed in Guayaquil. The largest city in Ecuador was one of the places most affected by Covid-19 in Latin America, perhaps even the world (Benítez et al., 2020; The New York Times, 2020). During the first weeks of the crisis, crude images of …
This article is part of the following series: Dispatches from the pandemic
What is the object of epidemiological interventions during an epidemic? Is it the virus, the disease, the fear, the chaos, or the threat to security? And what is the objective of those interventions? Is it to eliminate the virus, to mitigate the effects of the disease, to calm the fear, to control the chaos, or to defeat the threat?
On …
This article is part of the following series: The Age of COVID-19
V: Oh sweetie, don’t leave me.
Magdalena: I have to go home now. But on Monday, I can bring you the Coca-Cola you asked me for.
V: I’m not interested in the soda. You’re what’s interesting, someone to talk to. I don’t want to be left alone. Give me your hand; don’t go just yet.
They had told me about …
This article is part of the following series: Dispatches from the pandemic
“Kanari Kuikuro shows me a pot full of winged leafcutter ants he has just collected”. November, 2002. Xingu Indigenous Land, Brazil. Photo by Carlos FaustoTwo weeks ago, Kanari Kuikuro called me from Canarana, a small town in the Brazilian Amazon, where he now lives with his wife and many children. He is originally from the Xingu Indigenous Land, which lies …
This article is part of the following series: Dispatches from the pandemic
Brazilians, says President Jair Bolsonaro, are so tough they can fend off this pesky COVID-19 virus, the same virus that has killed more than 147,000+ people worldwide and counting.
Likening COVID-19 to a “little flu”, the Brazilian leader has exposed, once again, how he governs this South American country with a toxic mix of populist mistrust of science, ableism, and …
This article is part of the following series: Dispatches from the pandemic
On March 22, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro delivered a long cadena– an impromptu speech carried live by public and regime-controlled TV stations – dedicated exclusively to COVID-19. Wearing, somewhat incongruously, a FC Barcelona tracksuit, Maduro gave a grim report on the spread of the virus around the world and justified his decision to impose a “voluntary and radical national …