Beyond the New Normal

Keywords: Gramsci; Southern Question; Pandemic
Abstract Type: Virtual Paper Abstract

Abstract

The first time we heard the phrase ”the new normal” it was evoked to suggest that controlling pandemics and climate-change led disease might mean permanent periods of indoor mask-wearing, testing and isolating, intended to show we cared for one another and to keep disease spread under control. Indeed the first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic was met with widespread demonstrations of solidarity at both interpersonal and policy levels, from mutual aid groups to the CARES act. Yet as public health protections were systematically dismantled, and the US CDC and western governments solidified personal responsibility as their pandemic management strategy, normal has come to mean accepting 400+ deaths in the US alone, as well as severe chronic illness and disability,

Engaging with Gramsci’s writing on the Southern Question, and considering the historically produced spatial inequities wrought through climate change and the ongoing pandemic, this talk argues that the new normal is a heightened state from neoliberal capitalism’s dismantling of the welfare state; in order to “live with COVID” we must actively ignore our personal contribution to others’ suffering. As climate crisis takes a a heightened pitch, this new normal forebodes a dark future. But just as 2020 saw people come together for both public health and racial justice, we can invoke notions of radical care that became so popular in 2020 as climate catastrophe threatens to further heighten the stakes of our our connectedness.