A virus is an undead vector that traces both the beauty and abuses of our mutual reliance. The porosity of our bodies is the very interface of our social being. Where we connect and communicate lies risk for contagion. Porosity affirms that we are already multiple, interdependent, and entangled. A virus is not a metaphor. Viruses circulate where we touch and saturate the air we breathe. Different viruses trace divergent choreographies of vulnerability, sociality, and capital markets. Their movements within our social and material lives can draw our attention to critical nodes. One of these nodes is where notions of care and cure intersect—yet they must not be conflated. Another critical node is where mystification and lack of open participation in pricing policies for publicly funded biomedical innovation enables the enduring power of pharmaceutical companies to prioritize profit over people’s lives amidst health crises. This autotheoretical essay narrates subjectivities of being with the viral alterity of hepatitis C and brings an embodied perspective of navigating disability within neoliberalism to prefigure the global medical apartheid of the Covid-19 pandemic. Capital and viruses—like the undead—defy distinctions across life and nonlife while nonetheless exerting agency and animism within our worlds. The attentions I cultivated toward choreographies of risk and responsibility, as well as the contours I traced around the black boxed edges of the financialized global health sector, are intertwined throughout this essay. I direct attentions to the interfaces between us where we know material interactions occur, but we have poorly developed senses to perceive them.

错误:搜索内容不能为空,请输入英文关键词
错误:关键词超出字数限制,请精简
高级检索

Atmospheres of the Undead: living with viruses, loneliness, and neoliberalism

  • Caitlin Berrigan

摘要

A virus is an undead vector that traces both the beauty and abuses of our mutual reliance. The porosity of our bodies is the very interface of our social being. Where we connect and communicate lies risk for contagion. Porosity affirms that we are already multiple, interdependent, and entangled. A virus is not a metaphor. Viruses circulate where we touch and saturate the air we breathe. Different viruses trace divergent choreographies of vulnerability, sociality, and capital markets. Their movements within our social and material lives can draw our attention to critical nodes. One of these nodes is where notions of care and cure intersect—yet they must not be conflated. Another critical node is where mystification and lack of open participation in pricing policies for publicly funded biomedical innovation enables the enduring power of pharmaceutical companies to prioritize profit over people’s lives amidst health crises. This autotheoretical essay narrates subjectivities of being with the viral alterity of hepatitis C and brings an embodied perspective of navigating disability within neoliberalism to prefigure the global medical apartheid of the Covid-19 pandemic. Capital and viruses—like the undead—defy distinctions across life and nonlife while nonetheless exerting agency and animism within our worlds. The attentions I cultivated toward choreographies of risk and responsibility, as well as the contours I traced around the black boxed edges of the financialized global health sector, are intertwined throughout this essay. I direct attentions to the interfaces between us where we know material interactions occur, but we have poorly developed senses to perceive them.