The COVID-19 Pandemic and the Politics of Life

This book explores the extent to which the COVID-19 pandemic is poised to be a permanent fixture in the modern world which in contemporary times will be thought of in terms of before and after the pandemic. It looks at how the pandemic has brought to the fore the question of the appropriate ethics, politics, and spirituality and highlights the present condition of humanity and the need to rethink alternative planetary futures. It argues that the pandemic has existential and epistemic implications for human life on planet Earth, and a post–COVID-19 future requires a fundamental transformation of the present economic, political, and social conditions. Drawing on empirical case studies on the COVID-19 pandemic from Africa and beyond, contributions in this book challenge the reader to rethink alternative planetary futures. It will be a useful resource for students, scholars, and researchers of African studies, citizenship studies, global development, global politics, human geography, migration studies, development studies, international studies, international relations, and political science.

Notes on Contributors vii 1 The planetary impact of COVID-19 1 Inocent Moyo and Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni 2 Reengaging power: state responses to COVID-19 and the provision of public goods in Canada and the United States of America 9 Samuel Ojo Oloruntoba and Kgoto Jan Mbele 3 COVID-19 and the challenges of trauma, transformations, and deborderisation: ethics, politics, and spirituality and alternative planetary futures 29 Ananta Kumar Giri 4 The COVID-19 moment: exacerbation of narrow nationalisms and their toxicity to integration aspirations 42 Zenzo Moyo 5 COVID-19 pandemic, geopolitics of health, and security entanglement in West Africa 60 Olukayode A. Faleye 6 The conundrum of balancing between COVID-19 policing and human rights protection in South Africa: a responsibility to protect perspective (R2P) 75 Patrick Dzimiri 7 A Trojan horse: critically exploring data as a colonial instrument during the COVID-19 pandemic in South Africa 90 Kyle John Bester and Danille Elize Arendse 8 Occupational health in the mining industry of South Africa and the COVID-19 pandemic 109 Robert Maseko 9 “On est pas de cobayes”: Congolese migrants and health transnationalism in the COVID-19 moment 127 Leon Mwamba Tshimpaka and Christopher Changwe Nshimbi 10 “#Corona Jihad”: remanufacturing Islamophobic narratives during COVID-19 in contemporary India 141 Sayan Dey Index 160

Inocent Moyo is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Studies and Acting Deputy Dean of Research, Innovation, and Internationalisation in the Faculty of Science, Agriculture, and Engineering at the University of Zululand, South Africa. He researches borders, migration, and the political economy of the informal economy in the Southern African region. Sabelo J. Ndlovu-Gatsheni is Research Chair in Epistemologies of the Global South at the University of Bayreuth, Germany. He is a prominent historian and one of the leading decolonial scholars and theorists in the Global South. He was the Executive Director of the Change Management Unit (CMU) in the Principal and Vice-Chancellor’s office at the University of South Africa (UNISA) and Professor of African Political Economy at the Thabo Mbeki African Leadership Institute (TMALI) at the same institution. Previously, he headed the Archie Mafeje Research Institute for Applied Social Policy (AMRI).