How to Have Theory in a Pandemic: A Critical Reflection on the Discourses of COVID-19

In the months since the arrival of COVID-19, we questioned whether it was possible, in the words of Paula Treichler, to have theory in an epidemic. What can scholars schooled in the deconstructive arts say at this point? With this question in mind, this chapter considers Treichler’s chronicling of HIV/AIDS, as well as Priscilla Wald’s account of the so-called outbreak narrative, and explores how their rendering of parallel pandemics might help us in our reading of COVID-19. Drawing on these authors especially, we encourage geographers, writing in the interdisciplinary space that we inhabit, to raise critical questions about the uneven geographies of the pandemic in particular. COVID-19, perhaps more so than any recent outbreak of infectious disease, has been framed by discourses that make much of common responsibilities and in particular of national collectives. Such a collective response has helped to save lives, particularly in countries that acted swiftly and decisively: “go hard, go early” in the words of New Zealand PM Jacinda Ardern. Yet at the same time, it is necessary to consider the narrative framing of this pandemic alongside the material realities and situated politics that shaped people’s lives before, during, and, no doubt, after its arrival. For as the burden of this disease is mapped and disaggregations of which communities, classes, and social groups have been most affected become available, it is equally clear that we are not all “in this together” in quite the same ways.