Viral ecologies

Resurgent nature, Covid-19 and the discourse of transgender contagion

Dados Bibliográficos

ID4464867
AutoresSage Brice (0000-0001-6384-150X, Durham University, autor correspondente), Felix Mcnulty (0000-0002-1179-5254, Durham University)
Ano2024
Volume7
Fascículo6
Páginas2343-2364
Data de publicação2024-12-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoEnvironment and Planning E Nature and Space (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 2514-8486 • E-ISSN: 2514-8494
EditoraSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/25148486241284176
OpenAlexW4403228227
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas2
Referências citadas110

During the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, popular narratives of a 'resurgent nature' and portrayals of the virus as a form of 'revenge' prompted geographical reflection on the promises and limitations of ecological perspectives on the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Revisiting these reflections in the light of what we have learned from the pandemic, this article asks what is to be gained by attempting to think critically with the virus about human space as multispecies composition. Thinking ecologically with the virus can become a method for critically reconsidering naturalised and dualistic orders of exclusion and inclusion, health and unhealth, or belonging and unbelonging. Specifically, we focus in this article on the overlap of immunological and trans-antagonistic discourses with viral imaginaries of the pandemic, exploring the paradox of vulnerability that arises at this point of intersection. COVID-19 simultaneously highlights humans' mutual vulnerability as a horizontalising force and amplifies differential social vulnerabilities. In examining this paradox of vulnerability as it relates to viral discursive constructions of transness, we explore tensions between different modes of engaging, identifying and thinking with the virus in recognition that the social and the ecological cannot properly be considered as separate domains. The aim is not simply to propose an extended epidemiology that takes into account the complex human-nonhuman entanglement, but to explore the social, cultural and political implications of pandemic vulnerabilities and of thinking ecologically with the virus. We trace the shared conceptual underpinnings of ecological and immunological thought, showing that these same conceptual lineages manifest in political responses to the COVID-19 pandemic and exploring how they are expressed in queer- and trans-antagonistic discourse and policy. Building on these analyses, we develop a proposal for 'transing' the virus and a model for 'thinking ecologically' that is simultaneously liberatory, messy and agnostic

2019-20 coronavirus outbreak · Biology · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2 · Sociology · Transgender · Body Image and Dysmorphia Studies · Gender Studies · Gender, Feminism, and Media · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Medicine · Virology