Marking Pandemic Time: Introduction to the Special Section “Writing Ethnographically During a Pandemic” (Part Two)

Launching Part Two of this special section is a reminder, among many similar reminders, the relentless passage time and strange, distorted distance between beginning pandemic where we are now. Looking backward forward often feels equally dizzying to me, yet remains “constitutive dimension social reality” (Fabien 1983, 24). As ethnographers, attend human subjectivities embedded in place time. The five pieces presented here each mark their own ways or reflect upon specific qualities temporality that have characterized authors’ experiences pandemic. In Banks’s set three ethnographic poems, both micro macro formations change adapt rapidly: as “Viral Landscapes,” “tents mushroom parks,” “Home/!*#+-/Work” high school students “borrow” do homework carpark takeaway restaurant. Perrino’s piece elucidates time’s disorienting, multi-layered capacities; condensing into her mother’s “fast speech” on phone when news about Covid-19 breaks (revealing anxiety), then stretching connect generations they discuss fact grandmother, whose childhood spanned Spanish Flu, would been one hundred years old day. She goes explore process recontextualizing contemporary events through historical stories family narratives (often same), examining alarming resonances “recurring embodiment behaviors, mistakes, fear, dread” storytelling two pandemics. make our records unimaginable, outside this, entangled event epoch, continue unfold. poem “Marking Time,” monolith discovered Utah desert, distortions experienced during exaggerated with reference archaeological time, filmic mythological time—the entire wrapped sense surreal connects parallel unrelated events. different type intrusion real, Rocker’s diary takes record George Floyd’s tragic death, even amidst slow-blooming personal tragedy, work pressures all-too-recognizably clawing at edges consciousness all while. This poignant uses convention ship’s log grief: 11 April 2019, she marks month since World Health Organization first declared pandemic, continuing cancer diagnosis less than weeks later. It ends just months later, author’s world, world general, almost unrecognizable from began. mundane intimacies care: washing hair, kind words via email, gift binoculars for squirrel watching. Even author intended fieldwork travel plans new realities nature also its arrival hummingbirds blooming wisteria. Amidst “I am afloat ‘ongoingness’ life,” Rocker writes log, quoting Donna Haraway. Also dealing subjective “flow,” Perry’s attends affect immanence digital collaborative projects—specifically, contributions to, study of, Wikipedia. multiple histories term flow—as part studies globalization transnationalism (Rockefeller 2011), owing turn philosophical frameworks Deleuze Guttari (1977), anthropological communitas “collective joy” (V. Turner 1974; E. 2012)—are well-met piece, evoked “the electric forces emanating within various entities propel them out complex constellations by constant motion, newness, difference, change.” Thus, while aspects seem disrupted, stopped, paused look closer these alternative spaces, see perhaps relocated—qualitatively different, course, but still vital, motion. addressing letter newly returned face-to-face classes, Stocker extends theme was addressed One Special Section—that “culture shock” (Thompson Offen 2021). After period dwelling an emergent immersive “quarantine mode being,” returning what “normal” before can create emotional hurdles faced measures, argues. turns toolkit explain solve suggesting rituals routines help segment adjust tempo living go forward. Already has shifted space “memory”—with writing taking form reflection recollection version ourselves (individually collectively) become unfamiliar no longer exists. Grief marked traumatic disruption time—to memory anticipated imagined futures. I don’t think understand (and may not long yet) implication scale collective grief We it, rerouted it. But “it poor sort works only backwards,” Alice told Lewis Carroll’s Through Looking-Glass ([1871] 2016, 44). Indeed capacity remember forwards—to imagine something after beyond emerging from—feels more important ever moment. appears brief flashes throughout reflections offer. arguably, it central very practice writing. cannot write past selves, much might wish had known more, understood better, start this. Rather act writing, recording reflecting, faith future—something future selves others, readers survivors. such, ethnographically be seen hopeful act, appropriately honest grief, anxiety, frustration, anger. glad chance provide Anthropology Humanism, now times.