An Anthropology of the Co-Emergency: Getting Inspired bt the Covid 19 for a Natural Economy
Authors
Roberta Chiarini
Year 2023
Pubblication type
Book chapter
Abstract
Many emergencies in the world are not perceived to be the cause of spontaneous human behavioural change. Drawing from a cultural anthropology perspective, this chapter explores the perception of the limits in the Western cultural world and argues that COVID-19 must be understood in the development of concomitant emergencies (co-emergencies), and for the way, humans have adapted in similar situations of urgency and adapted solutions to face them. In a post-humanistic dimension, the solutions to face the COVID-19 pandemic are indeed recurrent to the human adaptation to past emergencies. The COVID-19 pandemic has introduced a human behavioural change that limited the risk of a contagious virus. This simplification is part of 'a new normal' that deals with the nexus between human perception of nature and an emerging governance of the economy. The chapter concludes that in a post-pandemic new normal we need to pave attention to the relationships between humans and non-humans to develop a capacity to act and react to multiple emergencies while reducing complexity.