The Entangled Emergencies of Covid-19

Bibliographic Data

ID2364036
AuthorsClaire Laurier Decoteau (0000-0001-5644-0361, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL, USA, corresponding author)
Year2024
Volume42
Issue2
Pages97-113
Publication date2024-06-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSociological Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0735-2751 • E-ISSN: 1467-9558
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/07352751241247567
OpenAlexW4395038308
LanguageEN
Citations received4
References cited34

City of Chicago officials adopted a 'racial equity' approach to mitigate the disproportionate racial impact of COVID-19, yet according to interviews with racially and socioeconomically marginalized Chicagoans, this approach failed to address core vulnerabilities associated with health, housing, mental health, and welfare. This article argues that COVID-19 represents and reifies the convergence of three sets of emergencies. First, federal and local governments governed through emergency, enacting temporally bounded governmental strategies that presumed scarcity, triaged care, and naturalized structural inequality by delinking the effects of racism from its causes. This response was spectacular and anticipatory-designed to safeguard the status quo until 'normalcy' could be restored. This approach exacerbated two existing endemic emergencies: (1) the slow emergencies racially marginalized populations have faced for decades due to neoliberal restructuring and fragmented care infrastructure and (2) the sacrifice of lower-income frontline workers to premature death to safeguard the economy and protect the middle class

Criminology · Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Health care · Inequality · Pandemic · Political economy · Political science · Racism · Restructuring · Sociology · Status quo · Welfare · Homelessness and Social Issues · Law · Medicine

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