Pandemic Narratives: An Anthropological Overview

A range of narratives has clamoured for attention from the very outset of the Covid-19 pandemic. If divergence is hardly surprising, simply because so many arenas of expertise and experience are involved, there are also remarkable convergences. Certain narratives get sedimented in habitual ways of talking, and often very quickly – the details presented here come from the early months of the pandemic.

It is truism that the present pandemic is global both in the reach of the virus and the accompanying response. Medical infrastructures, with their laboratories, clinics, and drugs, bring certain forms of debate with them, not just the languages of molecular science or public health but also of governance, personal behaviour, and social control. Habitual expressions of thought recur over and again, as in constant reminders of how untoward – «unprecedented» – the present situation is. And faced with what is agreed to be a phenomenon of unexpected virulence, narratives frequently converge in the way they process imminent catastrophes. Here, two strands jump out.