Abstract

EPELE, María E.. The Multiplication of Penalties: Preliminary Issues in Dealing with Proximity Accusations and Allegations in Times of Pandemic. Antipod. Rev. Antropol. Arqueol. [online]. 2021, n.44, pp.119-144.  Epub July 28, 2021. ISSN 1900-5407.  https://doi.org/10.7440/antipoda44.2021.06.

With the outbreak and devastating spread of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, different forms of containment methods have been implemented across Latin America that have radically and rapidly transformed public health approaches. The purpose of this paper is to provide a preliminary delimitation of the problem of person-to-person accusations and complaints in proximity contexts under the confinement regime in the metropolitan area of Buenos Aires (AMBA). This paper examines three issues: 1) anthropological perspectives on judicialization; 2) the broad-ranging consequences and paradoxical effects that accusations, denunciations, and judicializations have been proven to cause for the well-being, health, and survival of affected individuals and social groups; and 3) the particularities that anthropological work assumes in highly normatized, sanctioned, and criminalized contexts. This article addresses heterogeneous materials: historical background, anthropological arguments, research results, media information, regulations, etc., to analyze the case of the AMBA. Specifically, the text focuses on the practices employed during the months of the initial period of confinement in AMBA, from March 20 to November 9, 2020. This analysis sheds light on the ways in which proximity accusations and allegations lead to the fragmentation of social fabrics, deepen inequalities, and accentuate uncertainty about social responses to possible infection and death. They also compromise and distort epidemiological, preventive, and care strategies. While legal actions of the same type have taken place for other ailments and epidemics, proximity accusations and allegations, in this case, are understood as enabled and legitimized strategies that express and translate deep transformations -at the micro-scale of isolation- of the links between public health, legislation and security forces in social confinement regimes.

Keywords : Anthropology of health; judicialization; legal and public health formations; logic of accusation; SARS-CoV-2 pandemic.

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