“This Doesn’t Concern Me:” Distance, Relationality and Responsibility amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic

This philosophically, theoretically, and historically oriented project examines the cultural politics of concern amidst the Covid-19 pandemic. The project attends to concern as a spatial and relational question that plays out, for example, in cultural negotiations around pandemic solidarity and disregard, such as when it is suggested that “we’re all in this together” or “this doesn’t concern me”. Through a Foucauldian genealogical approach, the project engages a problematics of distance to examine the historical conditions of possibility for us to relate to the pandemic as something of concern and of relevance.

The project has received funding through the Academy of Finland Covid-19 special call. It is a subproject of Dividing the World through Wonder: How We Became Curious, which is also funded by the Academy of Finland.

Research team members:
Tuomo Alhojärvi, PhD
Mathias Ekström, MSc
Henna-Maari Kettunen, MA