‘We are doing better’: Biopolitical nationalism and the COVID-19 virus in East Asia

Jeroen De Kloet,Yiu Fai Chow,Jian Lin

doi:10.1177/1367549420928092

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic stirs up strong nationalist and localist sentiments; places pride themselves on containing the virus more effectively: We are doing better. We call this ‘biopolitical nationalism’, understood by us as the dynamics between body, geopolitics and affect. When looking at mainland China, Taiwan and Hong Kong, we analyse how the biopolitical efforts of these places are being compared, applauded and supported. Under a discourse of life and survival, this celebration of biopolitical control does not fall into the classic reproduction of capital, but speaks to geopolitical identification. Biopolitics has morphed into a field of competition, of rivalry, of nationalistic – or, perhaps more generally, localist – power games. What can we do as Cultural Studies scholars?

Highlights

The COVID-19 pandemic stirs up strong nationalist and localist sentiments; places pride themselves on containing the virus more effectively: We are doing better
We are not going to engage with the ‘Agamben debate’, not because it is not important, but because we have observed something going on in the parts of the world we are more familiar with – Hong Kong, Taiwan and mainland China – and this something from the field urges us to think of biopolitics in a different way
Under a similar discourse of life and survival, this celebration of biopolitical control does not fall into the classic reproduction of capital, but speaks to geopolitical identification

Summary

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic stirs up strong nationalist and localist sentiments; places pride themselves on containing the virus more effectively: We are doing better. Agamben mobilizes the concept of biopolitics as a critical tool to probe into the workings of the nation-state, and the multiple ways it controls the population under the threat of the virus.

Results

Conclusion