Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

More-Than-Human And Deeply Human Perspectives On Covid-19, Elizabeth Lunstrum, Neel Ahuja, Bruce Braun, Rosemary Collard, Patricia J. Lopez, Rebecca W.Y. Wong

Global Studies Faculty Publications and Presentations

This multi-authored contribution explores what the COVID-19 pandemic demands of critical inquiry with a focus on the more-than-human. We show how COVID-19 is a complex series of multispecies encounters shaped by humans, non-human animals, and of course viruses. Central to these encounters is a politics of difference in which certain human lives are protected and helped to flourish while others, both human and animal, are forgotten if not sacrificed. Such difference encompasses practices of racialisation and racism, healthcare austerity, the circulation of capital, border-making, intervention into non-human nature, wildlife trade bans, anthropocentrism, and the exploitation of animal test subjects. The …