Stigma and the logics of wartime (Luna Dolezal)

By Luna Dolezal

Political and media messages about the COVID-19 crisis are saturated with the language of wartime, and shaded by an implicit or explicit nostalgia for the Second World War “blitz spirit.” In this article, we discuss how the war metaphor gives rise to a sacrificial logic that manifests through the various forms of “othering”—as positive and negative stigma—experienced by health workers.