Touch in the Time of Corona by Henriette Steiner Kristin Veel

Author:Henriette Steiner, Kristin Veel
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: De Gruyter
Published: 2021-09-20T09:38:48.493000+00:00

Figure 19: Antoine d’Agata’s thermographic images document the streets and intensive care units of France during the pandemic. The images from the pandemic are evocative in their portrayal of human vulnerability. In these photos, humans touching each other become a layering of warm shades of orange, evoking the sensation of touch as a warm imprint on the skin of the audience. We are reminded of the lyrics of Leonard Cohen “Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in/ Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove/ Dance me to the end of love.” Image Credit: © Antoine d’Agata / Ritzau Scanpix

It is evident that there is deep and divisive confusion about whose battle we are fighting when adjustments to bodily and cultural customs are linked to ways of “fighting” corona. For example, one kind of solidarity and embodiment of the greater societal good – occasionally described in specific terms as pertaining to the health care system – is sometimes positioned over and above all others.110 We are not contesting the absolute significance of a functioning medical system – either for society in general, or for individuals requiring treatment for COVID-19 or other diseases during the pandemic – but we recognize that this focus prompts a host of difficult questions about the complicated, differentiated costs of particular political prioritizations and their wider effects on political choices and institutional restructuring during the pandemic. What we can do here is to raise questions about what happens to basic categories – such as public goods and the social bond – and how those categories are affected by changes to public architecture and behavioral norms. Moreover, we can try to trace how the human and political response to the pandemic grinds its way through understandings of what knits together and alters societal institutions, allowing new metaphors, morals, and ethics of togetherness, individuality, and the societal body to emerge and take hold. Some of these concepts entail huge costs in terms of individual rights, and the massive spending of public funds to fight a single battle. But some might also evoke deeply meaningful responses that have to do with care, carefulness, and positive, constructive solidarity in the face of human frailty, and have the potential to become ingrained in new ways in the bodies and minds of people living through this pandemic – thereby perhaps sparking more just and less individual-centered forms of coexistence that take into account a wide range of feelings and vulnerabilities.

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