The Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan: denial, managing uncertainty, public response, and retrospection
<p>The Covid-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences beyond health, affecting global social, political, and economic structures. Spanning March 2020 to July 2021, my field research explored pandemic responses in Pakistan. Using an array of research tools, including autoethnography, digit...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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2024
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| _version_ | 1811140030555488256 |
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| author | Sajjad, PF |
| author2 | Gellner, D |
| author_facet | Gellner, D Sajjad, PF |
| author_sort | Sajjad, PF |
| collection | OXFORD |
| description | <p>The Covid-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences beyond health, affecting global social, political, and economic structures. Spanning March 2020 to July 2021, my field research explored pandemic responses in Pakistan. Using an array of research tools, including autoethnography, digital ethnography, and online and in-person semi-structured interviews involving 139 participants from the city of Lahore and the village of X in the outskirts of Multan, I examined responses of participants with a wide range of other occupations and socio-economic backgrounds as well as government officials and doctors and nurses, taking into account diverse temporalities.</p>
<p>My thesis employs a political economy lens to explore how inequalities based on people’s identities based on factors like gender, class, ethnicity, religion, and occupation, as well as their intersections, influenced pandemic responses. I argue that these inequalities were exacerbated during each of the four stages of the pandemic: denial, managing uncertainty, negotiating public response, and subsidence.</p>
<p>Firstly, I analyse how denial, in its literal, interpretive, and implicatory forms, included beliefs denying the virus’s existence, adherence to conspiracy theories, and blaming marginalised groups for the virus’s spread. Next, I explore how uncertainty was managed by my participants, encompassing actions like stockpiling essentials and engaging in altruistic acts. Yet, these coping mechanisms were influenced by inequalities, with economically affluent individuals better able to afford and partake in such activities. Furthermore, I scrutinise the public response, particularly examining the views of state officials, doctors, and nurses. I argue that Covid-19 policies favoured certain groups while marginalising others, exacerbating inequalities based on class, gender, and occupation among healthcare professionals, especially doctors. Lastly, I provide an overview of the vaccine rollout, emphasising how perceptions of the vaccine varied and how inequalities influenced access and acceptance.</p>
<p>I aim to contribute to the expanding literature on the anthropology of pandemics by directing attention to a region overlooked in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Moreover, my research seeks to deepen our understanding by incorporating diverse voices from various socio-economic backgrounds and examining responses across four out of the five waves of Covid-19 infection in Pakistan. This multi-faceted approach serves as a powerful lens, highlighting existing inequalities often overlooked in everyday life but starkly illuminated during disasters.</p> |
| first_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:15:30Z |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oxford-uuid:6db23427-b053-4f21-92ad-486fb2baa622 |
| institution | University of Oxford |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-09-25T04:15:30Z |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | oxford-uuid:6db23427-b053-4f21-92ad-486fb2baa6222024-07-18T12:27:10ZThe Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan: denial, managing uncertainty, public response, and retrospectionThesishttp://purl.org/coar/resource_type/c_db06uuid:6db23427-b053-4f21-92ad-486fb2baa622Medical anthropologyPandemicsAnthropologyApplied anthropologyEnglishHyrax Deposit2024Sajjad, PFGellner, DAlcayna-Stevens, L<p>The Covid-19 pandemic has had far-reaching consequences beyond health, affecting global social, political, and economic structures. Spanning March 2020 to July 2021, my field research explored pandemic responses in Pakistan. Using an array of research tools, including autoethnography, digital ethnography, and online and in-person semi-structured interviews involving 139 participants from the city of Lahore and the village of X in the outskirts of Multan, I examined responses of participants with a wide range of other occupations and socio-economic backgrounds as well as government officials and doctors and nurses, taking into account diverse temporalities.</p> <p>My thesis employs a political economy lens to explore how inequalities based on people’s identities based on factors like gender, class, ethnicity, religion, and occupation, as well as their intersections, influenced pandemic responses. I argue that these inequalities were exacerbated during each of the four stages of the pandemic: denial, managing uncertainty, negotiating public response, and subsidence.</p> <p>Firstly, I analyse how denial, in its literal, interpretive, and implicatory forms, included beliefs denying the virus’s existence, adherence to conspiracy theories, and blaming marginalised groups for the virus’s spread. Next, I explore how uncertainty was managed by my participants, encompassing actions like stockpiling essentials and engaging in altruistic acts. Yet, these coping mechanisms were influenced by inequalities, with economically affluent individuals better able to afford and partake in such activities. Furthermore, I scrutinise the public response, particularly examining the views of state officials, doctors, and nurses. I argue that Covid-19 policies favoured certain groups while marginalising others, exacerbating inequalities based on class, gender, and occupation among healthcare professionals, especially doctors. Lastly, I provide an overview of the vaccine rollout, emphasising how perceptions of the vaccine varied and how inequalities influenced access and acceptance.</p> <p>I aim to contribute to the expanding literature on the anthropology of pandemics by directing attention to a region overlooked in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Moreover, my research seeks to deepen our understanding by incorporating diverse voices from various socio-economic backgrounds and examining responses across four out of the five waves of Covid-19 infection in Pakistan. This multi-faceted approach serves as a powerful lens, highlighting existing inequalities often overlooked in everyday life but starkly illuminated during disasters.</p> |
| spellingShingle | Medical anthropology Pandemics Anthropology Applied anthropology Sajjad, PF The Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan: denial, managing uncertainty, public response, and retrospection |
| title | The Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan: denial, managing uncertainty, public response, and retrospection |
| title_full | The Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan: denial, managing uncertainty, public response, and retrospection |
| title_fullStr | The Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan: denial, managing uncertainty, public response, and retrospection |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan: denial, managing uncertainty, public response, and retrospection |
| title_short | The Covid-19 pandemic in Pakistan: denial, managing uncertainty, public response, and retrospection |
| title_sort | covid 19 pandemic in pakistan denial managing uncertainty public response and retrospection |
| topic | Medical anthropology Pandemics Anthropology Applied anthropology |
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