Fear of and anger against the other - the strange, the sick and the imaginary struggle for survival

Abstract

This article wants to explore the associative relationship between epidemics, lack of hygiene and foreignness that German people, politicians and the German press have made repeatedly during the recent wave of migration from Syria to Germany. It wants to especially look at the emotions of fear, anger and the resulting hate that not only pull these two things together but that combine being a health risk and being a stranger in a way that they create a vicious circle in which one perpetuates the other and creates a condition in which one always serves as a justification for the other.We will present the relationships among fear, anger, and hate empirically by reflecting on a few interviews carried out in Germany, three press articles and people's comments in the press, on Facebook and other social media that have surfaced after a small outbreak of scabies in a refugee camp in the Jenfelder Moorpark in Hamburg. The outbreak was neither medically meaningful nor caused by a lack of the refugees' hygiene, but rather as a consequence of the bad hygienic conditions that were to be found in the provisional refugee camp. However, this little but crucial part of information never really entered into the wider public debate -partly because the local German press only focused on the outbreak itself rather than on its causes and partly because the current social context has created a lack of confidence in the press, from both sides of civil society. Instead of critical reflections on causes and backgrounds, the majority of commenting readers pronounced publically the hypothetical link between their fears of both foreigners and epidemics and used the story as a bond-maker, allowing them to create a collective emotional reaction with others based on their projected fears. Within this process of collective projection fear turned into anger, as a collective form to face individual fear, resulting in the sensation of a need for collective self-defence, a sensation that their Society Must be Defended (Foucault, 2003 Defended, Foucault, 2003).

Towards a sociology of emergency. Epidemics, biorisks, and the society of the Coronavirus

“…Results from focus group discussions show how the visual representation of epidemics might contribute to prejudices and to the deepening of pre-existing inequalities. This fits with findings discussed by Seebach, et al (2016), in which preconceived imaginaries of the hygiene of migrants influence their depiction in the media and how social and media imaginaries contribute to collective perceptions and consequent reactions to "potentially risky others".…”

Reshaping the social work education system toward cultural competency: The Hong Kong case

“…Yet there have been also changing attitudes to multiculturalism in the West recently, for instance the rise of protectionism and nationalism amid fear of the influx of migrants or refugees such as in the current European zone (e.g. Seebach et al, 2016). Perhaps the Western notion of multiculturalism is under scrutiny in the West, with increasing fear of the other and viewing ethnic/cultural difference as problematic rather than complementary to a mosaic type of society (e.g.…”

Scabies outbreak management in refugee/migrant camps in Europe 2014–2017: a retrospective qualitative interview study of healthcare staff experiences and perspectives

“…Outbreaks have been widely discussed in news and social media. Media analysis by Seebach et al 23 described some of this coverage as stigmatising those affected by scabies, while positing migrants/refugees more generally as an invasive health threat to European countries. Multiple camps in France have been evicted with the public justification of responding to scabies outbreaks (examples of newspaper reports: Lichfield and Newton, online supplemental file 1, p. 2).…”