External publications

Between jab lines and pandemic orientalism in urban Sri Lanka

published on medanthucl.com, 16.03.2021

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The global COVID-19 vaccination drive has been steeped in geopolitical rivalries, captured not in the least within mainstream Euro-American media narratives. Coverage of the vaccine efforts in the so-called “Global South” has been replete with orientalised visions of these countries where the same international media-predicted pandemic disorder that did not come to pass as expected. Critics might call this “pandemic orientalism.” A chart published in The Economist predicts for example 2023 as Sri Lanka’s vaccine roll-out year. Arguably, such orientalised framings barely took into account contemporary realities of vaccine manufacturing. Countries such as Vietnam, Cuba and Iran are presently in the process of manufacturing their homegrown COVID-19 vaccinations, while India remains one of the world’s largest manufacturers and suppliers of vaccinations. In this blog, we’ll explore how Sri Lanka’s state-funded vaccine drive has been unfolding since late January 2021 through our intertwined and intensely personal perspectives, while putting these everyday grassroot sensibilities in conversation with particular geopolitical narratives.