What are the various experiences of COVID-19 across the globe and what ways can we listen to this transnational community? How is COVID-19 interacting with Chilean politics, both past and present? How are Germany and the larger European Union coping with the uneven effects of the pandemic?
Dr. Gonzalo Bacigalupe, a professor of counseling psychology at the University of Massachusetts, Boston and leader of the Citizen, Education, and Governance Team at the Research Center for Integrated Disaster Risk Management (CIGIDEN) in Santiago, Chile discusses the state of the pandemic as of March 2020 in Chile. Dr. Bacigalupe talks about how COVID-19 intersects with the Estallido Social protests, interagency politics, and Chilean legacies of neoliberalism and militarism. Also an artist, Dr. Bacigalupe explains how art can help people grapple with the scale and reality of disaster. Daniel Lorenz a scientific research coordinator at the Disaster Research Unit in Berlin, Germany, contributes with his experience of COVID-19 in Germany. Lorenz discusses Germany’s decentralized approach to mitigation measures, its low case rate compared to other EU countries, and the politics of border closures. Lorenz puts the German situation in a larger EU and international context discussing how the pandemic is affecting EU politics, the refugee crisis, and vaccine research/production.
For further reading:
Death in Life: Survivors of Hiroshima
Disaster Citizenship: Survivors, Solidarity, and Power in the Progessive Era
“How a $0.04 metro fare price hike sparked massive unrest in Chile” in Vox
“Behind Germany’s Relatively Low COVID-19 Fatality Rate”