Organization encounters a new virus: A cautionary tale of othering and (not) learning

The world's dire experience with a new coronavirus has shown that the (re)organization embedded in managing a virus and knowledge on organization(s) and management are out of joint. This article entwines life story into reflections on the pandemic to illustrate how knowledge relations are afflicted by othering that constrains learning and facilitates the conditions of possibility for precarious pandemics. In doing so, the account scrutinizes both knowledge activities and domains of scholarship as it navigates tensions between the works of Latour and Foucault. The article is structured into four parts. Theoria focuses on the textual body and the politics of ‘willful blindness' that segregate the ‘theoretical other';Praxis addresses the human body, operational knowledge and the ‘everyday geopolitics of fear' that heroicize the ‘essential other';Regimen examines the social body, regulatory knowledge and the ‘political economy of truth' that contests the ‘prescribing other' and Poiesis addresses the global body, productive knowledge and the international geopolitics that distance the cultural and national other. Each activity poses relational tensions that confront organization which compel us to extend organizational scholarship in ways that facilitate its articulation with scholarship on the virus and invite us to approach knowledge on pandemic (re)organization as a joint cause. © The Author(s) 2023.

"Othering” by Consent? Public Attitudes to Covid-19 Restrictions and the Role of the Police in Managing Compliance in England

The aim of this paper is to consider the relationship between an emergent decay of social trust created by the Covid-19 pandemic and the formation of "in” and "out” groups. Data from 37 extensive semi-structured interviews with members of the public in England found that identifying the "other” through normative conceptions of "security and order” was used by participants to legitimize their own presence within the "in” group, while self-reported compliance with restrictions was used to construct identities to be in line with that of the "in” group. These findings have important implications both for social trust within and between communities and toward the police.

The unsanitary other and racism during the pandemic: analysis of purity discourses on social media in India, France and United States of America during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The global rise of populism and concomitant polarizations across disenfranchised and marginalized groups has been magnified by so-called echo chambers, and a major public health crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic has only served to fuel these intergroup tensions. Media institutions disseminating information on ways to prevent the propagation of the virus have reactivated a specific discursive phenomenon previously observed in many epidemics: the construction of a defiled 'Other'. With anthropological lenses, discourse on defilement is an interesting path to understand the continuous emergence of pseudo-scientific forms of racism. In this paper, the authors focus on 'borderline racism', that is the use of an institutionally 'impartial' discourse to reaffirm the inferiority of another race. The authors employed inductive thematic analysis of 1200 social media comments reacting to articles and videos published by six media in three different countries (France, United States and India). Results delineate four major themes structuring defilement discourses: food (and the relationship to animals), religion, nationalism and gender. Media articles and videos portrayed Western and Eastern countries through contrasting images and elicited a range of reaction in readers and viewers. The discussion reflects on how borderline racism can be an appropriate concept to understand the appearance of hygienic othering of specific subgroups on social media. Theoretical implications and recommendations on a more culturally sensitive approach of media coverage of epidemics and pandemics are discussed.

Pandemics and Management of "Dangerous Communities”: Ebola, COVID-19, and Africans in China

How do we unpack and make sense of anti-African/Black sentiments in the pandemic control and mitigation practices in China? This article responds to the question by drawing a parallel between the experiences of Africans in China during the Ebola virus disease and COVID-19 outbreaks. Focusing specifically on Nigerians as a subsection of the African community in Guangzhou City, China, it explores how the COVID-19-inspired discrimination against Africans reflects much of the experiences of Africans in China during the Ebola crisis of 2014. The article combines sixteen "Ebola experience” data points, obtained from Nigerians in Guangzhou in 2017, with four COVID-19 experience virtual interviews, media reports, and social media archive and netnographic analysis covering April to June 2020. The experiences of Africans in Guangzhou in the early months of the COVID-19 outbreak reflect a patterned response to Africans and Blackness in the context of pandemic in China. The article contributes to the literature by examining the question of racial discrimination and the construction of African immigrant community in China as dangerous within the new geography of Afro-mobilities in East Asia. © 2022 by American Association of Geographers.

From the Chinese Exclusion Act to the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Historical Analysis of “Otherness” Experienced by Asian Americans in the United States

In 2020, the world witnessed the worst pandemic in more than a century that continues to impact and stigmatize minorities and immigrants disproportionately. During this time Asian Americans in the United States (US) have been subject to racist tropes, xenophobic attacks, and widespread hate crimes. The xenophobia and racism experienced by this group are not new, as demonstrated in this study. The injustices experienced by Asians in the US are embedded within the historical, social, political, and cultural structures that discriminate and are present throughout minority history. Unfortunately, scholars in the US Public Administration often underutilize a historical lens to study oppression, racism, and xenophobia. This essay provides key historical accounts of how Asian Americans experience othering while at the same time are perceived as model minorities. We will examine the history of "otherness" experienced by Asian Americans in the US from two key lenses: (1) disease and the other (2) labor and immigration policies.

The aliens within: Danger, disease, and displacement in representations of the racialized poor

Discrimination, stigmatization, xenophobia, heightened securitization - fear and blaming of "aliens within" - characterize the world infected by COVID-19. Such fears have a long cultural history, however, particularly in connecting pathology with race, poverty, and migration. This volume explores theory and narratives of disease, danger, and displacement through the lenses of cultural, literary, and film studies, historical representation, ethnics studies, sociology and cultural geography, classics, music, and linguistics. Investigations range from, for example, illness discourse in the ancient classics to images of perilous intruders in the Age of Trump, from the Haitian Revolution and subsequent zombie stereotypes to current, problematic refugee resettlement in the US South and Greek islands, from the urban underworld in nineteenth-century sensation novels to ethnic women "on the stroll" in coronavirus times. The collection is organized into three thematically intertwined parts: Stigmatizing the Racialized Underclass;Pathologizing the Other;Constructing and Countering Collapse. It examines changing or recurrent aporias in tropes of belonging and exclusion, as well as the birthing of new forms of identity, agency, and countercultural expression. © 2022 Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston. All rights reserved.

Differentiated "Others": Representations of the European Union and the United States From Chinese State Media in COVID-19-Related News Reports

Rarely in recent history has there been a challenge to public health as great as the COVID-19 pandemic. With newer cases still being reported on a daily basis, the media has maintained close track of the development of the outbreak in their news reports. This study analyzes representations of the European Union and the United States in China Daily, one of the major Chinese state media, through a content analysis of 88 news reports concerning the pandemic situations in 2020 from a broad perspective without explicitly elucidating the individual differences of the countries and states within these two global players. It reveals that China Daily represents the EU and the US differently within the global context of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly in the intensity of the outbreak, coordination and response, and most notably, their amicable and antagonistic relations with China. The results of the analysis epitomize China's interactions with major global actors from the West, which are increasingly shifting away from the traditional "East versus West" dichotomy, and the EU and the US are viewed as differentiated "others" from China's perspective according to the reports involved in this study.

Anti-Chinese sentiment in the Czech public service media during the COVID-19 pandemic

This paper focuses on Sinophobia which is usually not expressed openly in the public service media. The Sinophobia discourse intensified in 2020 in connection with the coverage of the pandemic. How are anti-Chinese attitudes expressed in the news discourse of the Czech Radio and Czech Television? Examples from a broader analysis of the representation of the SARS-COV-2 pandemic in news and journalism programmes are given. Inductive qualitative research methods (discourse and semiotic analysis) were used to detect subtle nuances of meaning and reveal implicit presuppositions. This study focuses on the manifestations of bias, e.g., the ideologically grounded attitudes of the speakers. The anti-Chinese statements (about poor hygiene habits and eating wild animals) were most often mentioned in connection with the origin of the coronavirus, vaccination, and China expansive policy. Sinophobic messages were built on the opposition of Us and Them, which is, according to van Dijk (2000), the core of new racism. In spite of the fact that the open hate speech and systematic bias (intentional implications, obvious evaluation or signposting) were not found in the researched sample, the analysis identified the presence of Sinophobic statements in both public service media.

Trust in Institutions and the COVID-19 Threat: A Cross-Sectional Study on the Public Perception of Official Recommendations and of Othering in Switzerland.

Objectives: To explore how perceived disease threat and trust in institutions relate to vaccination intent, perceived effectiveness of official recommendations, and to othering strategies. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional survey of Swiss adults in July 2020. Outcome variables were vaccination intent, perceived effectiveness of official recommendations and othering strategies (labelling a given social group as responsible for the disease and distancing from it). Independent variables were perceived disease threat, trust in various institutions, perceived health-related measures, and sociodemographic variables. Linear and logistic regressions were performed. Results: The response rate was 20.2% (1518/7500). Perceived disease threat and trust in medical/scientific institutions were positively associated with vaccination intent and perceived effectiveness of official recommendations for coronavirus mitigation measures. Only disease threat was associated with a perception of effectiveness among othering strategies. Age and education levels were associated with vaccination intent. Conclusion: Reinforcing trust in medical/scientific institutions can help strengthen the perceived effectiveness of official recommendations and vaccination. It however does not prevent adherence to ineffective protecting measures such as othering strategies, where decreasing perceptions of epidemic threat appears to be more efficient.

The twin faces of ageism, glorification and abjection: A content analysis of age advocacy in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic.

While the government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic have varied across the globe, there has been a unifying cry from academia and public health professionals warning of the detrimental effects of attaching our understanding of this new threat to our already ageist attitudes. What is inescapable is that COVID-19 has an age-related risk component and the latest data shows that risks start to rise for people from midlife onwards. As governance agencies, professional practice, and academia work towards assessing, communicating, and addressing this risk, we ask: are existing gerontological conceptualisations of ageism appropriate for this exceptional situation and what is being (re)produced in terms of an aged subjectivity? Following van Dyk's (2016) critique of gerontology's 'othering' through both 'glorification' (third age) and 'abjection' (fourth age), a content analysis of statements and policy documents issued in response to COVID-19 provides evidence of well-meaning and inadvertent ageism through homogenizing language, the abjection/glorification binary within 'old age', and the power binary constructed between age and an age-neutral midlife. The paper concludes with reflections on future directions for ageism research beyond COVID-19.

When "model minorities" become "yellow peril"-Othering and the racialization of Asian Americans in the COVID-19 pandemic.

Using the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic as a case study, this paper engages with debates on the assimilation of Asian Americans into the US mainstream. While a burgeoning scholarship holds that Asians are "entering into the dominant group" or becoming "White," the prevalent practices of othering Asians and surging anti-Asian discrimination since the pandemic outbreak present a challenge to the assimilation thesis. This paper explains how anger against China quickly expands to Asian American population more broadly. Our explanation focuses on different forms of othering practices, deep-seated stereotypes of Asians, and the role of politicians and media in activating or exacerbating anti-Asian hatred. Through this scrutiny, this paper augments the theses that Asian Americans are still treated as "forever foreigners" and race is still a prominent factor in the assimilation of Asians in the United States. This paper also sheds light on the limitations of current measures of assimilation. More broadly, the paper questions the notion of color-blindness or post-racial America.

Othering and Deprioritizing Older Adults' Lives: Ageist Discourses During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

The COVID-19 pandemic is showing troubling othering demographic discourses. For older adults in particular, there are concerning thematics that should be shined light on. In this editorial, we provide perspectives from three countries: Norway, Italy and the United States. We provide four topics of discussion that can be utilized to further understand othering discoures of the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as potential future disasters.