Governing Corporeal Movement in India during the Covid-19 Pandemic

Bibliographic Data

ID4771040
AuthorsPablo Holwitt (0000-0002-6015-8825, Heidelberg University, corresponding author)
Year2021
Volume27
Issue4
Pages81-107
Publication date2021-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueBody & Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1357-034X • E-ISSN: 1460-3632
PublisherSAGE Publications Inc (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1177/1357034x211036490
OpenAlexW3208992489
LanguageEN
Citations received6
References cited29

This article explores the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the relationship between bodies, risk and mobility. Drawing upon ethnographic data from India, it is argued that measures taken by the Indian government to contain the spread of the pandemic link mobile bodies to the notion of risk which has profound consequences for the way in which people access and engage with public spaces in Indian cities. In this process, a new type of body - the risky mobile body - is produced. At the same time, these measures run into problems due to the volatile nature of knowledge about bodies and diseases that they rely on. While the mobility of the COVID-19 virus is a subject of public debate, the fluidity and open-endedness of mobile bodies makes them difficult to regulate. This mismatch between governmental logics and unknowable bodies constitutes a significant challenge for the fight against the pandemic

Aesthetics · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Disease · Ethnography · Government (linguistics · Infectious disease (medical specialty · Movement (music · Pandemic · Political economy · Political science · Sociology · Anthropology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Global Security and Public Health · Medicine · South Asian Studies and Conflicts

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