Normalising death in the time of a pandemic
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35295/osls.iisl/0000-0000-0000-1232Palabras clave:
COVID-19, death, registration, normal, excess, muerte, registro, excesoResumen
Este artículo examina la tensión que se produjo en el primer año de pandemia de la COVID-19 entre discursos sobre la muerte como anomalía y las técnicas para normalizar la muerte como resultado inevitable de la vida. Afirma que la tecnología de registro de muertes en el norte global en 2020 estaba condicionada por diferenciar entre lo normal y lo patológico, lo normal y la variación, y la media y el exceso. De hecho, el registro de un fallecimiento dependía de la creación de una nueva nomenclatura universal para comprobar la causa, lo cual excluía diversas circunstancias de la vida de una persona a fin de estabilizar el SARS-CoV-2 como una categoría normativa de clasificación. Por tanto, el artículo revela como, en época de pandemia, la tecnología de registro se puede usar para patologizar determinados tipos de muertes. Se argumenta que la fase inicial de la COVID-19 deja al descubierto, sobre todo a través de la tensión productiva entre discursos de la muerte como anomalía e inevitabilidad, que las tecnologías normalizadoras son inextricables de la forma en que un entramado de instituciones deciden qué muertes se deben contabilizar.
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