Covid-19, Climate, and Christianity in Rural Northern California

Divergent Frames for Masking

Bibliographic Data

ID14835929
AuthorsMaydha Dhanuka, Adam D Koon (0000-0002-9031-9810), E Mendenhall (0000-0002-5826-1321)
Year2023
Volume45
Issue1
Pages14-22
Publication date2023-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenuePracticing Anthropology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0888-4552 • E-ISSN: 2994-1628
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.17730/0888-4552.45.1.14
OpenAlexW4317891128
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited18

The American political and emotional response to COVID-19 during the first pandemic summer of 2020 revealed a great deal about who we are as a nation: one that is divided and diverse, as well as geographically, racially, and politically complex. Political representation of governors was a powerful indicator of the public health policies during that first year, such as mask mandates. Mask politics have been heralded as a great indicator of political division. However, unlike most of the nation that confronted masking recommendations for the first time, many residents in rural Northern California had for several years masked routinely for wildfires. We conducted a small ethnographic study of people’s perceptions and experiences around masking amidst wildfires in Redding, CA—a red district in a blue state—where many residents disagreed with the Governor’s public health policies. We conducted this research in comparison, or contrast, to concurrent research on masking perceptions and experiences among rural residents of a red district in a red state (Iowa), where many residents agreed with the Governor’s inaction around COVID-19 prevention. We found four dominant frames in the rural Iowa district (see Koon et al. 2021) that were both similar and different from those in California. The four frames were: concern, crisis, constraint, and conspiracy. The concern frame described careful masking to prevent COVID-19 transmission for the self and others; most worked in health care and related masking for COVID-19 with masking for wildfires. The crisis frame is often linked with the risk of COVID-19 with convergent political crises of inequality and climate. The constraint frame primarily highlighted how business owners felt forgotten by the government and overrun by national corporations. The conspiracy frame illuminated how older and more conservative residents perceived themselves as dislocated from state leadership. This research in Redding illustrates how perceptions of risk and norms around masking were not only influenced by politics but also social context and previous exposure to masking. This research emphasizes the need to push against oversimplified narratives of the American response because the nation exhibits cultural, social, environmental, and political differences that are not clearly divided within regions, states, districts, or communities and differ from place to place

Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Geography · Governor · Masking (illustration · Pandemic · Political science · Politics · Public health · Sociology · State (computer science · Environmental Justice and Health Disparities · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Law · Medicine · Nursing · Urban Green Space and Health

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