Overview

In a reading between global, local and personal, Lenore Manderson and Susan Levine reflect on the current pandemic, understanding that it is tempting to ask what our world would be like if governments had responded with the same vigour to other global health disasters such as gender violence, climate change, war, HIV/AIDS or hunger. In relation to COVID-19, they warn of the multiple risks linked to poverty, lack of infrastructure and resources, overcrowded housing, lack of ventilation, hygiene and sanitation, soap or even water and taps. While many question the sustainability of global capitalism, the authors recall that closely linked to white privilege is the neoliberal desire to move on with the usual life, forgetting the protection of those whose lives are (always) compromised by inequality.