Entanglements of Care and Contagion

Masking in Pandemic Times

Bibliographic Data

ID12901799
AuthorsKatharina Krause (0000-0003-3572-0721, University of Tübingen, corresponding author), Katharina Wezel (0000-0002-9754-1879, University of Groningen)
Year2025
Volume20
Issue1
Publication date2025-09-24
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Political Sociology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1749-5679 • E-ISSN: 1749-5687
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/ips/olaf040
OpenAlexW7135076749
LanguageEN
References cited67

Care and security are intimately entangled. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the crucial yet utterly neglected role of care for societies to function. The threat of contagion connecting different bodies, very vividly, and in fact biologically, emphasized the relationality of human beings. Albeit transcending a purely biological account of connectivity, this relational understanding sits at the center of an ethics of care. Yet, this relationality is hardly addressed in current health–security approaches. We argue that a feminist ethics of care offers a more relational, yet critical understanding of health security that enables us to be sensitive towards the distribution and practice of solidarity, attentiveness, and responsibility. To put this claim into practice and to thus contribute to the international political sociology of health, we conceptualize protective clothing as a materialization of a politics of care in contagious settings. The article proceeds in three steps. First, we specify how an ethics of care perspective can enrich our understanding of health security. Second, we introduce the mask as a materialization of a politics of care and the merit such a perspective holds. Finally, we investigate the role of the mask as a medical object and as a visual manifestation on the local and global levels

Coercion (linguistics · Ethics of care · Face (sociological concept · Health care · Masking (illustration · Object (grammar · Pandemic · Perspective (graphical · Politics · Feminism, Gender, and Intersectionality · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Global Security and Public Health