Vad kan man göra - The redistribution of a disaster

Abstract: Doing ethnographic work on the effects of COVID 19, I looked at how food service businesses were affected. I found that the government’s selective distribution of aid and lacking guidance had forced them to prioritize accommodating customers over their own safety. I look at the economic, mental, and physical risks imposed by this policy, and find that people cope with them through solidarity and creativity. In this, I draw on theories addressing the state, war, emotional labor, and disaster. My understanding of the state explains how pressure is created for workers to deal with the situation, and emotional labor explains more of the burden, and how they bear it. Vulnerability theory helps explain downward redistribution of the pandemic’s burden, and I develop its core points further to capture the socially deleterious impact of lasting disasters. Theories of war and solidarity explain how normality and everyday life are impacted by the disaster, and how people restore a sense of routine and normality cooperatively. I conclude that long term disasters need to be further studied and better understood because of their capacity to worsen and entrench inequality.