The COVID exception.

We are living in the midst of an exception but it is not an exception that the usual prominent theorists of Western academia (Agamben, Badiou, Butler, Žižek) have much experience in thinking about, since it is not an exception which has much to with Europe’s historical experiences with law, sovereignty or democracy.

European countries (and even more the USA) are not at the global forefront of morbidity, management or public health preparedness, in spite of their speedy development of potential vaccines and tests. Hence, they are in the strange position of welcoming assistance from China, Cuba and other unconventional actors on the world stage, especially in the case of Italy (which has welcomed Cuban doctors) and the USA (which has accepted significant medical aid from China). So, the idea of the European West as being somehow in a state of exception needs to be modified, since the exception is not the occasion for the seizing of special powers by the sovereign, but the concession of that all national sovereigns are weak.

This concession has two dimensions. The one which has been remarked widely is that the current crisis shows the limits of national policy, politics and borders in the face of a highly mobile global disease which does not spare the white, the rich, the wealthy and the famous. Thus, it knocks on the door of the Westphalian model of sovereignty in a way that Ebola, SARS, and even HIV did not. But the second dimension is more noteworthy, especially for anthropology. This dimension is the concession by many states that they cannot face this crisis without the help of society at large, through practices of self‐isolation, self‐monitoring, mutual caring and self‐reporting. The social has been rediscovered by the state, even in the most draconian cases such as that of China, where the dramatic lockdown of Wuhan did nevertheless require public compliance with the state. In the case of South Korea, we have the most remarkable policy based on the recognition that only its population had the social capacity to control, mitigate and push back COVID‐19. No ruler in his right mind has denied that without a full‐blooded social mobilisation, there will be no survival this time. Whether this proves to be true or not, only time will tell, but we will look back on this time as one in which the arrogance of the nation‐state has been dealt a massive blow by the rediscovery of the social resources that managing this crisis requires.

Much could be said about this moment and much that is said will be proven wrong. Those of us who practice anthropology need to observe, nurture and mobilise this new moment of possibility for society, in contrast to the state, as the only reliable site for a politics of survival. That is why we live in a state of exception, not because the sovereign is seizing excess power around the world.