Pushpa Arabindoo, “Pandemic cities: Between mimicry and trickery”, City & Society, 2020.

Extract

As lockdowns came to be mimicked and reproduced by sovereign states all over, there seems to be a common script outlining these responses that would thrill to no end global health proponents and their penchant for norms and standards. However, as a possible object of mimesis, we need to look beyond its inevitability as well as a temptation to signify it with neo-imperial markings, knowing that there is a difference that is almost the same but not quite (Bhabha 1984). Lockdowns, to put it simply, will look different in all of its locales, its actuality being blurrier, messier and uncertain.

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