Brazil's war on COVID-19: Crisis, not conflict—Doctors, not generals. Issue 2 (July 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pfrimer, Matheus Hoffmann; Barbosa, Ricardo
• Is Part Of: Dialogues in human geography. Volume 10:Issue 2(2020)
• Page Start: 137
• Page End: 140
• Publication Date: 2020-07
• Subjects: Brazil -- COVID-19 pandemic -- geopolitics -- imaginative geographies -- security -- war-framings; Human geography -- Periodicals; Human ecology -- Periodicals; Environmental ethics -- Periodicals; 304.205
• DOI: 10.1177/2043820620924880
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 2043-8206

Abstract

This commentary first documents the ways in which President Jair Bolsonaro's administration has evoked securitized discursive strategies that frame Brazil's national response to COVID-19 as a matter of defense instead of public health. We then ask: What does it mean to talk about the virus and the ways to address it through war-framings? We argue that the Bolsonaro administration has framed the COVID-19 pandemic as an extra-territorial threat in an effort to create internal stability while failing to handle the matter effectively. Such politically motivated spatial framings inhibit an effective response in Brazil and pose a severe threat to public health. Once COVID-19 becomes securitized, the response is framed by the military bureaucracy rather than public health authorities, resulting in dangerous consequences.