Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic prompted critical attention to the performative power of metrics. We suggest that the existential capacities of metrics as a means of pandemic living warrant further consideration. We describe how the COVID-19 pandemic that came into existence as a public health and political event could only have occurred because of the anticipatory metrical practices that were used to transform SARS-COV-2 into a matter of global health concern. By exploring the affective potencies of COVID-19 metrics we show their abilities to engage the public in ways that cannot be contained; in detailing the narrative arcs created through metrics we show their opportunities, misdirections, and erasures. A pandemic way of life persists: a pandemic of metrics.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 149-163 |
Number of pages | 15 |
Journal | Medical Anthropology Quarterly |
Volume | 38 |
Issue number | 2 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Jun 2024 |
Keywords
- Covid-19
- affective publics
- global health
- metrics
- pandemics
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Anthropology