Amount Awarded: $20,000
Who is considered a refugee, who is an immigrant, and who is a native? The Covid-19 pandemic, which has created an unprecedented impact on mobility both within local communities and across international borders, and which has been accompanied by a resurgence of nationalist and nativist responses to a global problem, only heightens the urgency of these questions. This second stage of a successful research collaboration will explore how, in the context of the Covid-19 crisis, designations of "native," "immigrant" and "refugee" are alternatively cast as aspersions or grounded as the basis of claims. We are particularly interested in how gender is construed in discourse and policy, and the particular burdens placed upon women and families; racial constructions of a "foreign" or "Chinese virus" even while indigenous communities and communities of color face disparate impacts; questions of temporality and how time is experienced and imagined when we do not know the temporal horizon of this pandemic and there is both "too much" and "not enough" time; and questions of space and mobility at this time of global immobility. With our innovative approach, we will examine how these designations are constructed and contingent, with ramifications for both scholarly thought and public policy.