{"id":638,"date":"2021-02-01T15:13:15","date_gmt":"2021-02-01T14:13:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/?p=638"},"modified":"2021-02-01T15:11:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-01T14:11:38","slug":"something-i-have-learned-from-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/2021\/02\/something-i-have-learned-from-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"Something I Have Learned from COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"

The following text was published by Marco Armiero<\/a> in Environment and History 26 (3), pp. 451-454<\/a>, in August 2020. Marco writes as acting president of the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH<\/a>).<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"\"I hope I am not taking advantage of my position as the president of our society to write what might seem to be a quite personal text. Feminist practices and scholarship have taught me that the personal is never only\u00a0personal but also political. In my own work I have always blended \u2013\u00a0someone less sympathetic would say mixed up \u2013 the personal, the scientific and the political, convinced, as I am, that we know the world not only through concepts and words but also through emotions and political passions. So, please bear with me in my perhaps inappropriate trespassing of those various realms.<\/p>\n

I would like to start by thanking all of you for your caring and warm support during these difficult times. As many of you may already know, I have been seriously ill with COVID-19. I was hospitalised for almost one month, spending ten days in the Intensive Care Unit. My condition was critical. During that time, and in my convalescence, I felt the privilege of being part of such a loving community; my family and I never felt alone. In this weird time of quarantine, colleagues and friends\u00a0 unleashed their creativity, overcoming geographical distance, my\u00a0 difficulties in speaking, and the physical distancing that the virus has imposed upon us. I happily run the risk of sounding cheesy but I wish to say that so much love was an amazing therapy \u2013 together with all the antiviral drugs and assisted breathing tools I received from the hospital. An academic society is not a group of friends, I realise this very well. But friendship, caring, and love can make a difference also in an academic society.<\/p>\n

I have often campaigned for a scholarship that has the ambition to contribute to changing the world; perhaps this experience has taught me that we need to also change the ecologies of our relationships and feelings, starting from where and who we are.<\/p>\n

Someone told me, trying to cheer me up, that it must have been my\u00a0 obsession with bottom-up research and empirical fieldwork that brought me into the eye of this epidemic: \u2018It was not enough to read about COVID-19, you had to experience it first-hand.\u2019 Jokes aside, I wonder what I have learned from that unplanned fieldwork. I should immediately confess that it is not easy for me to reflect on my experience because it is painful and very emotional. While writing these few lines, I feel inadequate for the task and I am struggling with myself over whether I have actually something to say that might be of general interest. Perhaps, this is lesson number one: being humble and not pretending always to have something smart to say.<\/p>\n

When I arrived at the local hospital here in Sweden, nurses and doctors were sure I was coming from Italy, perhaps after a short visit to family or friends. Indeed, I am from Italy \u2013 if you have ever heard me speaking in English, you would have no doubt about it \u2013 but I was not coming from Italy. The need to track the contagion is often a relevant tool in the control of epidemics like the current one. In Italy, at least at the beginning of the pandemic, there was an attempt to follow the movement of the virus from one subject to another, aiming to stop the spread of the contagion. Even now, regional governments have the authority to declare a \u2018red zone\u2019 \u2013 that is, to lock down a specific area (a town, a neighbourhood or perhaps a hospital) where the virus is especially prevalent in order to end the contagion. I was also asking myself – at least when I was still conscious \u2013 how and where I got infected, revising in my mind the last two weeks of my existence. Isn\u2019t this lesson number two?<\/p>\n

I believe that, in general, people in the Global North do not think of their daily lives in those terms. We move in antiseptic, immunised\u00a0 environments, assuming that the world around us is not affecting our bodies, at least not with such immediate consequences. Even fewer of us would routinely see other human beings as biological threats. COVID-19 reminds us of what Stacy Alaimo has defined as trans-corporeality\u2013 that is, the interconnectedness of all beings with the material world in a dialectic relationship which transforms both of them simultaneously.<\/p>\n

Although not employing this post-humanist lexicon, Alfred Crosby was arguing something very similar to trans-corporeality in his volume on the history of the Hispanic Flu: \u2018The human body is a collocation of wonders, and none is more wondrous than the lungs. Here, quite literally, the line dividing the body from its environment is thinnest. The embodied experience of trans-corporeality in the dramatic form of COVID-19 calls for rethinking our understanding of the daily, familiar environment and its invisible\/invisibilised relationships to the wider world. Several scholars have stressed that the present pandemic is the result of the expansion of intensive animal farming and the impingement of market-oriented agriculture on the wild. The organisation of production and consumption makes invisible the links connecting our daily environments with these wider networks of exploitation, but the body is the middle ground where those connections can become visible again, sometimes in a spectacular form as with COVID-19. The illusion that we live in a completely isolated and immunised environment is shattered.<\/p>\n

However, while revealing the interconnections of the world and the impossibility of preserving indefinitely the safety of a small portion of it alongside the ruin of the rest, my experience of COVID-19 also goes almost in the opposite direction, and here we come to lesson number three. I got the virus in its aggressive form, as did many others around the world, but this does not make all of us equal. Rob Nixon once wrote that we might all be in the Anthropocene but in different ways. Similarly, Robert Bullard wrote that not all communities are created equal. COVID-19 is not the biological equaliser reducing our socio-ecological structure to the bare strength of our bodies. Race, class, gender and history matter in this pandemic. Many countries impoverished by colonial and neoliberal extractivism and exploitation have extremely weak health infrastructures; plus, as Mike Davis has noted, epidemics do not occur in a void, acting instead in combination with lack of food, inefficient sanitisation and poverty. Several studies are pointing at the unequal distribution of the virus, which seems to hit already vulnerable people more severely, including ethnic minorities, migrants and prison inmates. Obviously, this is not because of inappropriate behaviours \u2013 blaming the victims is always an easy toxic narrative \u2013 but rather because the virus is completely embodied into the current socio-ecological relationships which reproduce inequalities and privileges.<\/p>\n

Something I have learned from COVID-19 is that I survived because I live in the \u2018right\u2019 part of the world, I belong to the \u2018right\u2019 class and I am not an illegal immigrant. Even now, going through my convalescence\/quarantine, it is clear to me that my privilege makes my experience bearable. The\u00a0 appeal to social distancing and washing hands frequently are fantasies \u2013 perhaps insults \u2013 for most people who live in overcrowded environments, without services or are homeless. The very idea of home as a safe place denies the reality of domestic violence against women \u2013 and in fact several sources mention an increase of gender-based violence during the\u00a0 quarantine. And apart from violence, for many women the pandemic has brought even more care work. No, through COVID-19 I have not discovered how much we are all the same, but, on the contrary, the extent to which inequalities are inscribed in our lives and deaths.<\/p>\n

But the truth is that I did not think of any of those issues when I was in the hospital, when I was intubated or when I was struggling to breathe. I was instead thinking of my family, I was afraid of not seeing them again; I was wondering whether I would see my daughter getting older, if I had been a good father and partner. I was afraid to die and I did not think about the many deadlines I was missing, the grants I did not get and the books I did not write.<\/p>\n

Perhaps, this is lesson number 4, but this lesson might be just for me.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

MARCO ARMIERO
\nPresident of the European Society for Environmental History<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The following text was published by Marco Armiero in Environment and History 26 (3), pp. 451-454, in August 2020. Marco writes as acting president of the European Society for Environmental History (ESEH).   I hope I am not taking advantage of my position as the president of our society to write what might seem to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1305,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,67,3],"tags":[81,88,109,110],"class_list":["post-638","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","category-publications","category-the-division","tag-covid-19","tag-environmental-justice","tag-eseh","tag-gratitude"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":416,"url":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/2020\/01\/undisciplining-political-ecology-a-minifesto\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":0},"title":"Undisciplining Political Ecology: A Minifesto*","author":"","date":"2020-01-15","format":false,"excerpt":"By Marco Armiero, Stefania Barca and Irina Velicu. A reflection on the concept that gave the name to this platform, with an invitation to unlearn the disciplinary boundaries of academia and engage in more personal reflections and actions to connect our various struggles, \u201cto build collectives of care rather than\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The EHL"","block_context":{"text":"The EHL","link":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/category\/the-ehl\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/undisciplinedenvironments.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/05\/undisiplined_logo.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":518,"url":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/2020\/11\/tell-the-story-trauma-as-an-environmental-issue-or-the-personal-is-ecopolitical-youtube\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":1},"title":"Tell the Story. Trauma as an Environmental Issue. Or, The Personal Is Ecopolitical – YouTube","author":"Sofia Jonsson","date":"2020-11-13","format":false,"excerpt":"Enjoy a virtual talk between Marco Armiero and Serenella Iovino from October 2020. This webinar was a part of Serenella's course: Entangled Emergencies. Theories (and Stories) to Think with the Virus. An Environmental Humanities Approach at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. Serenella is a Professor of Italian Studies\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The EHL"","block_context":{"text":"The EHL","link":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/category\/the-ehl\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1393,"url":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/2023\/03\/upcoming-final-seminar-on-planetary-timekeeping\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":2},"title":"Upcoming! Final Seminar on Planetary Timekeeping","author":"Achim Kl\u00fcppelberg","date":"2023-03-06","format":false,"excerpt":"Erik Isberg, doctoral student at the division, will discuss the progress of his dissertation at his final seminar on 13 March 13.15-15:00 (Stockholm time). The title of his seminar is \"Planetary Timekeeping: Paleoclimatology and the Temporalities of Environmental Knowledge. 1950-1990\". Dania Acherman, Senior Scientist from the University of Bern, will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Events"","block_context":{"text":"Events","link":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/category\/events\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Profile picture of Erik Isberg","src":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/files\/avatar\/eriisb","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":98,"url":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/2017\/11\/trespass-an-environmental-history-of-modern-migrations-entitle-blog\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":3},"title":"Trespass. An environmental history of modern migrations \u2013 ENTITLE blog\u00a0","author":"Sofia Jonsson","date":"2017-11-08","format":false,"excerpt":"In a new book, Marco Armiero and Richard Tucker have edited together important contributions to the emerging field of the environmental history of modern migrations. Three main \u2018styles\u2019 of research delineate the contours of a timely research effort. This post was originaly posted in the\u00a0Entitle blog : Trespass. An environmental\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "The EHL"","block_context":{"text":"The EHL","link":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/category\/the-ehl\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/files\/2017\/11\/marco-post-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/files\/2017\/11\/marco-post-2.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/files\/2017\/11\/marco-post-2.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":343,"url":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/2019\/09\/from-sicily-to-sweden-lessons-in-history-and-environmental-humanities\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":4},"title":"From Sicily to Sweden: Lessons in History and Environmental Humanities","author":"","date":"2019-09-12","format":false,"excerpt":"by Elisa Privitera (Lizzy), C. M. Lerici Foundation Fellow My story with Sweden started around two years ago. It was a scorching and sunny summer. I had just gotten my Masters Degree that explored the creation of a community laboratory that sought to regenerate a historical and neglected district in\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Research"","block_context":{"text":"Research","link":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/category\/research\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/files\/2019\/09\/LABPEAT-625x511.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/files\/2019\/09\/LABPEAT-625x511.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/files\/2019\/09\/LABPEAT-625x511.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":909,"url":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/2021\/08\/a-new-phd-at-the-division\/","url_meta":{"origin":638,"position":5},"title":"A new PhD at the division","author":"Achim Kl\u00fcppelberg","date":"2021-08-30","format":false,"excerpt":"Life moves on, a new term has started and we as a division are very glad to welcome our new PhD-student Erik Ljungberg, who works in the History of Media and Environment with a focus on AI and autonomous systems. We have asked him a few questions to introduce himself\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Interview"","block_context":{"text":"Interview","link":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/category\/interview\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Profile picture of Erik Ljungberg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/files\/2021\/08\/KTH-Picture-625x351.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/files\/2021\/08\/KTH-Picture-625x351.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/files\/2021\/08\/KTH-Picture-625x351.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1305"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":660,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638\/revisions\/660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kth.se\/blogs\/hist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}