COVID-19 and the Long Revolution

Abstract

Recent events surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic have exposed deeply embedded structural inequities within the United States, triggering national dialogues around institutional racism, carcerality, and the logic of neoliberalism. While our reckoning with these structures continues to unfold and remix in unpredictable ways, we offer a theoretical lens for understanding this moment. Using the concept of liminality, we argue that a long revolution has been activated through a state of suspended order; specifically, with our routines disrupted to mitigate fallout from COVID-19, we have been afforded limited space for recognizing these structures and the linkages among them. Here, we engage with carceral capitalism to make sense of present conditions. As we move through the long durée, forging new structures and patterns, it is crucial to remember that which we must abandon: the systems and tools of subjugation that remain inconsistent with how we live and, more importantly, how we want to live.