Radio discourses, epidemic maps and local representations of COVID-19 in Guinea

ABSTRACT

If COVID-19 epidemics confirmed social sciences' interest for the study of social media (Lee Hugues et Pale, 2009) and infodemic (Vosoughi et alii, 2018) in epidemic contexts, it also excluded a large part of the population still important in Africa from the production of knowledge those who cannot access internet because of lack of connection and/or illiteracy. This paper fills this gap by analyzing local representations of COVID-19, drawing on the longitudinal study of radiophonic discourses in national languages and face-to-face ethnography led by anthropologists among the population. It examines how COVID-19 was appropriated and interpreted by Guinean population through the mobilization of epidemic, political and historic local experiences. It also considers how the evolution of local representations of the pandemics, over time and over political and economic perturbations, illustrates a progressive cognitive and practical lack of public interest in the virus. To do so, radio shows in national languages including participation from the public on COVID-19 topic were systematically recorded, transcribed and translated in French from March to August 2021. National languages included sosoxui for Basse-Cote, pulaar for Moyenne Guinee, kissiye and kp epsilon l epsilon epsilon woo for the Forest region, and maninkakan for Haute-Guinee. Long-term participant observation and face-to-face interviews were led in the cities of Conakry and Mamou, and in the rural areas of Forecariah from May 2020 to December 2021 among health professionals and general population. These data were analysed thematically and chronologically to examine how the epidemics was discussed and the restriction measures commented by the population through time. From March to May 2020, the massive diffusion of information about COVID-19, both at international and national level, led the Guinean to take ownership of the protection measures against the epidemic - the traumatic memory of Ebola playing a major role. However, as the epidemic event merged with the 2020 controversial electoral process, local populations began to question the relevance of the epidemic management policies and restriction measures. The reduced number of positive cases led to a trivialization of COVID-19 and to a rising popular resistance against restriction measures such as confinement and wearing a mask. The virus appeared exogenous and concerning only national elites and populations of Northern countries. The representation of the epidemic, first powered by the trauma of Ebola, rapidly turned to the register of coercion now called the "Screwdriver epidemic", COVID-19 in Guinea appears for the local populations as the reproduction of the unequal relation binding them to their elites, as Guinea is bound to the rest of the world.