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The Politics of Life and Death in the Time of COVID-19

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Organising Care in a Time of Covid-19

Part of the book series: Organizational Behaviour in Healthcare ((OBHC))

Abstract

Early on in the COVID-19 crisis, it became clear that health systems were not prepared to cope with the anticipated demand for acute services. Faced with the need to ration care, guidelines were issued by national bodies, and clinicians encouraged patients to exercise their right of control over their lives, and possible death. Yet unlike in previous crises disquiet and challenges to these directions began to emerge early on in the pandemic. Examined through the lens of Mbembe’s framework of necropolitics, which analyses the state’s right to decide who may live and who must die, these decisions and guidelines can be seen in a very different light to the more usual neoliberal agenda of choice and autonomy. We utilise and extend Mbembe’s concept to examine persistent inequalities and inequities in morbidity and mortality, and their variation during states of crisis, and the consequences for those people structured as not simply vulnerable but, ultimately, as surplus to requirements.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centre for Health Services Management, University of Technology Sydney, Syndey, NSW, Australia

    Joanne Travaglia & Hamish Robertson

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  1. Joanne Travaglia
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  2. Hamish Robertson
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Correspondence to Joanne Travaglia .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Health Services Management Centre, University of Birmingham, Birmingham, UK

    Justin Waring

  2. School of Public Health, Université de Montréal, Montréal, QC, Canada

    Jean-Louis Denis

  3. Copenhagen Business School, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Anne Reff Pedersen

  4. University of Auckland, Auckland, New Zealand

    Tim Tenbensel

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Travaglia, J., Robertson, H. (2021). The Politics of Life and Death in the Time of COVID-19. In: Waring, J., Denis, JL., Reff Pedersen, A., Tenbensel, T. (eds) Organising Care in a Time of Covid-19. Organizational Behaviour in Healthcare. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-82696-3_13

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