COVID-19 in working-class neighborhoods of two Argentine cities

Abstract

This paper presents a synchronic analysis of the diseases during the emergence of COVID-19, the management and impact of the lockdown, and how the media narrated these events in working-class neighborhoods of the metropolitan areas of Buenos Aires and Gran Resistencia from March to November 2020. We resorted to quantitative methods on secondary sources to describe poverty and syndemics and conducted week-by-week ethnographic and media research on 38 neighborhoods with water shortages and critical overcrowding. As a result, COVID-19 syndemically emerged with dengue, measles, and tuberculosis, and the preventive measures exacerbated institutional and gender violence, the Werther effect, and the neglect of other illnesses. Ethnography revealed syndemics with noncommunicable diseases and the influence of structural violence on health. The media analysis shows interest in the districts associated with the fear of contagion, but they disappear from the media agenda once dispelled.

COVID-19 in Pluralea Interactions: A Case Study in Santo Tomé (Corrientes, Argentina)

“…Nighttime street circulation between rural areas and the city was especially subject to biopolitical control [ 13 ]. Even so, our field experiences in Santo Tomé did not lead to the stigmatization of professional or socio-ethnic stereotypes [ 13 ], even though this could be documented in larger cities such as Buenos Aires and Resistencia [ 6 , 7 ].…”

“…At the onset of the pandemic, between March and June 2020, the largest share of infections occurred in the first two cities [ 6 , 7 ], but a few months later, epidemic outbreaks (called “second, third, fourth waves”) appeared throughout the country. In January 2021, it was Santo Tomé’s turn.…”

“…Although climate change is not only a natural phenomenon, it is interlinked and interconnected with COVID-19 emergency overlapping crises that should be analyzed with a broad intersectional approach [ 14 ]. This description of drought (worsened by hydroelectric dams and forestry water consumption) and fresh food production decline (affected by agribusiness promotional policies) as convergent ecocrises in pluralea interactions [ 8 ] shows how modes of economic production determine production modes of disease, risk and death [ 7 , 9 , 15 ].…”