Pandemic prejudices in times of crisis: reframing 'imagined cosmopolitan communities' through multidirectional memory

Benedict Anderson’s exegesis on nationalism claims that individuals are united into ‘imagined communities’ by nationality through a series of processes, including, for example, those relating to religion, capitalism and language. Extending Anderson’s thesis, Ulrich Beck has subsequently suggested that global crises provoke broader ‘cosmopolitan imagined communities’ that extend beyond nations. Referring to the HIV/AIDS and Covid-19 outbreaks, this article argues that while such crises superficially appear to be globally unifying, as suggested by Beck, they actually precipitate societal divisions and splinter communities through both direct and indirect discriminatory processes. In so doing, it suggests that the HIV/AIDS and Covid-19 pandemics display clear analogies in terms of misinformation, discrimination, racism and stigma, articulated through reference to Michael Rothberg’s model of multidirectional memory whereby traumatic events have the capacity to recall previous historical traumas. Through analysis of both news media and scholarly resources, as well as engaging with the aforementioned studies, it therefore challenges Beck’s contention in relation to the two pandemics.

Citation

Pheasant-Kelly, F. (2025) Pandemic prejudices in times of crisis: reframing 'imagined cosmopolitan communities' through multidirectional memory. Oxford Intersections.

Type

Chapter in book

Language

en

Description

This is an author's accepted manuscript of an article published by OUP in Oxford Intersections on 20/03/2025. The accepted manuscript may differ from the final published version. For re-use please see the publisher's terms and conditions.

ISBN

9780198945246

Collections

Faculty of Arts, Business and Social Sciences