When caring and mourning threaten public health

The experience of Covid-19 preventive regulations in Zambia

Bibliographic Data

ID2187036
AuthorsJames Musonda (0000-0002-7891-4713, University of Liège, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume47
Issue1
Pages46-58
Publication date2024-01-02
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueAnthropology Southern Africa (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2332-3264 • E-ISSN: 2332-3256
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/23323256.2023.2250834
OpenAlexW4388446662
LanguageEN
Citations received2
References cited35

This article explores how Covid-19 regulations in hospitals and regarding funerals disrupted and limited the capacity of kin to care, and transformed the meanings of life and death, for Zambians. Nonetheless, patients and kin exercised their agency through disobedience, by bargaining with officials and by drawing on resources, such as social media and video calling, audio calling, and messaging via the mobile phone to express care and love. The article draws on ethnographically grounded accounts of my personal experiences of the Covid illness: the hospitalisation and loss of my maternal uncle; participant observation in hospital and community settings; and various formal and informal interviews with members of the general public. To understand people's engagement with rules in the hospital, at funerals and at the graveyard, I draw on Alice Street's notion of sociotechnical assemblage that takes these as places of total biopolitical management and a space where alternative and transgressive social orders emerge and are contested.Este artigo investiga como os regulamentos relacionados à Covid-19 nos hospitais e no tocante aos funerais perturbaram e limitaram a capacidade dos familiares de cuidar e transformaram os significados da vida e da morte para os zambianos. No entanto, os pacientes e familiares exerceram sua agência através da desobediência, da negociação com funcionários e do recurso a instrumentos como as redes sociais e as videochamadas, as chamadas de áudio e as mensagens enviadas pelo celular para expressar cuidado e amor. O artigo baseia-se em relatos etnograficamente fundamentados das minhas experiências pessoais com a Covid: a hospitalização e a perda do meu tio materno; observação participante em ambiente hospitalar e comunitário; e diversas entrevistas formais e informais com membros do público em geral. Para compreender a relação das pessoas com as regras no hospital, no funeral e no local de sepultamento, baseio-me na noção de agregado sociotécnico de Alice Street que toma o hospital como um local de gestão biopolítica total, mas também como um espaço onde ordens sociais alternativas e transgressivas emergem e são contestadas.Keywords: caredeathfamilyfuneralhealthcare staffhospitalrestrictions

Agency (philosophy · Civility · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Social science · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Gender Studies · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy

Tools

Open DOI