Book contents
- Democracy in Times of Pandemic
- Democracy in Times of Pandemic
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction: A New Beginning
- Part I Power
- Part II Knowledge
- Part III Citizens
- 10 COVID, Europe, and the Self-Asphyxiation of Democracy
- 11 Corona as Chance: Overcoming the Tyranny of Self-Interest
- 12 Reimagined Democracy in Times of Pandemic
- 13 Redefining Vulnerability and State–Society Relationships during the COVID-19 Crisis: The Politics of Social Welfare Funds in India and Italy
- 14 Democracy and the Obligations of Care: A Demos Worthy of Sacrifice
12 - Reimagined Democracy in Times of Pandemic
from Part III - Citizens
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 November 2020
- Democracy in Times of Pandemic
- Democracy in Times of Pandemic
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Contributors
- Introduction: A New Beginning
- Part I Power
- Part II Knowledge
- Part III Citizens
- 10 COVID, Europe, and the Self-Asphyxiation of Democracy
- 11 Corona as Chance: Overcoming the Tyranny of Self-Interest
- 12 Reimagined Democracy in Times of Pandemic
- 13 Redefining Vulnerability and State–Society Relationships during the COVID-19 Crisis: The Politics of Social Welfare Funds in India and Italy
- 14 Democracy and the Obligations of Care: A Demos Worthy of Sacrifice
Summary
Never before has a majority of humanity focused collectively and simultaneously on the most elementary gift of life: Breath. We watched as the most vulnerable gave out their last breath in droves. We watched out for each other’s breath. We watched for our kin and our neighbors and for the breath of strangers. We watched, as thousands of health workers around the world sacrificed their lives so that the rest of us could breath. And amid a universal lockdown, we watched a lone black man in Minneapolis breathe his last under the lockdown of a policeman oblivious to his haunting cry: I can’t breathe. In the months preceding this moment, we had willingly held our democratic breath, only for the urge to speak out to erupt again, on the part of populations grasping for air around the world. “If White People Didn’t Invent Air, What Would We Breathe?” echoes Dread Scott’s old ironic cry, bringing together those intertwined threads.
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- Information
- Democracy in Times of PandemicDifferent Futures Imagined, pp. 168 - 181Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2020
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