The GDC wants to offer a decentered outlook on the current pandemic, bringing together a variety of inspiring responses to the Covid-19 crisis in the shape of articles, videos, pictures, art, essays, or podcasts
“We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.”
Arundhati Roy, Financial Times 3 April 2020. “The Pandemic is a Portal”

By Philip Kasinitz
Those of us lucky enough to be able to work from home now joke about what the blurring of the line between public and domestic space means for our everyday lives: attending “zoom” meetings in sweat pants (or no pants); the little glimpses of the private lives of our colleagues and bosses that spill over onto the screens. Yet, I don’t think we have fully begun to grasp the implications of the sudden withdrawal from public life has meant for our social relations and our politics.
read (pdf)

‘Is It Normal?!’
By Olga Sezneva
An online discussion organized by the French Institute in Russia, Urbanism & Participation Lab at the European University of St. Petersburg, and a postgraduate program in urban design, Building City Now!. The discussion critically interrogates the lost sense of normality and the normal to which we collectively want to return (or not). In English, featuring speakers from Amsterdam, Barcelona and St. Petersburg and moderated by Olga Sezneva.

High-skilled immigrants are stuck in limbo. Can we help them ‘work remotely?’
COVID-19 border closures and backlogs have stranded people with seemingly bright futures in Canada. Many of these individuals have sold their homes, quit their jobs, packed their bags and uprooted their families, expecting to come to Canada on work permits.

Can crisis be an opportunity for Canada’s migrant farmworkers?
By Lucia Nalbandian & Anna Triandafyllidou
The COVID-19 pandemic has revealed that among Canada’s truly “essential” workers are many low-skilled temporary migrant workers: those who find it nearly impossible to access permanent residency, and later, citizenship.

“Coronavirus Curriculum”
By Felis Tibbits
Students at Teachers College (TC) of Columbia University are collaborating with the UNESCO office in Beijing to develop a “Coronavirus Curriculum.” The aim of this curriculum packet is to use the advent of the pandemic to explore issues central for critical global citizenship. For what is now self-evident to all is that we are living in a world that is interconnected and interdependent. What can we learn by treating covid-19 as a case study of this?

“Gold Standard” A comic by graphic artist Sonny Liew
Soft truths to keep Singapore from stalling.
Gold Standard provides a good account of how covid has highlighted the presence of the huge population of low-pay migrant workers in Singapore, heretofore hardly present in the consciousness of the local community at large. The high number of covid infection in this group (hundreds each day) compared to the much lower number in the community at large (several to ten-plus each day) brought about further segregation of the migrant workers and the local community, notwithstanding the new awareness of the migrant workers.
This work was made possible by the Splice Lights On Fund, which supports small to mid-sized news organisations and their freelancers in Asia that are financially affected by Covid-19.

The First Patient in My Bedroom: On Therapeutic Intimacy and Mirroring during the Pandemic
by Sariya Idriss
“There is no “framework” behind which to hide, and I could not appear unflappable at will. I reasoned that pretending immunity to the pandemic’s global impacts wouldn’t be therapeutic, anyway. I confront the screen and this newfound vulnerability.”

The Migrant-Citizen Nexus in View of the Coronavirus Pandemic: Can We De-Migranticize Responses?
by Janine Dahinden
How can the migrant-citizen nexus help us make sense of Europe’s nationalist reaction to COVID-19 and its consequences? Using the lens of the migrant-citizen nexus, I present some alternatives to these nationalism-based policies and measures. I focus on the Swiss case as a specific example of a more general pattern in Europe as a whole (and beyond).

How Lebanon’s political parties are using coronavirus to seize back control
by Jamil Mouawad
“Perhaps as never before, now is the right time – akin to many calls worldwide to imagine the world anew – to focus on the culture of hope, and look at both crises, health and economic, not as the end but rather as a constitutive moment for the future of this country.”

Mobilities, neo-nationalism and the lockdown of Europe: will the European Union survive?
An essay by Adrian Favell & Ettore Recchi, pondering the future of the EU.
“Imagine the re-nationalised world we may be about to inherit. We have been quarantined in our designated national unit, and we have been told that all international travel is cancelled, except for those returning “home”.”

At times of a pandemic: transnational solidarity not national borders
by Anna Triandafyllidou
National borders have become more visible and less permeable than ever, and citizenship appears to have resurfaced as the ultimate marker of community, belonging and solidarity. But is this truly the case? Or are we also witnessing the rise of transnational solidarity within and across borders, while citizens within their communities ‘betray the solidarity’ they have with their fellow nationals?

Switzerland: Corona fördert Nationalismus
In der Corona-Krise werden die Grenzen der Nationalstaaten wieder so sichtbar, wie schon sehr lange nicht mehr. Die Staaten machen die Schotten dicht und versuchen, ihre jeweils eigenen Wege aus der Krise zu finden. Internationale Solidarität steht inzwischen nicht einmal mehr im Kleingedruckten.

In a country of 1.3 billion, space isn’t just scarce – it’s taboo. Try squaring that with a pandemic
An essay by Tanmoy Goswami
In India, many live in less space than is recommended for prison cells. And to most of us, having our own room is unimaginable – if not taboo. Social distancing as a measure to battle the coronavirus pandemic isn’t just a challenge. It’s completely unnatural to a country where community is everything.

London Migration Film Festival
Online in the time of Covid – the online programme is available for six weeks from April 20 2020
London Migration Film Festival is coming to you at this time with a platform hosting a retrospective of some of our favourite films presented in our programme over the past four years. This platform will be accessible online for free. For those who can, we ask that you donate your spare £ € $ to charities and voluntary organisations supporting migrants and refugees through this difficult time.

Portugal’s response towards migrants in stark contrast with other countries
Juntos vamos ficar bem
Portugal sets an example of how important it is that countries extend their critical services to all residents – regardless of where they were born. Now, more than ever, the health of each nation depends on everyone who is living in it – not just those with a government-issued ID card.

Coronavirus: Middle East states crack down on media freedom
By Megan O’Toole
‘It will have ramifications for democracy and for a sense of accountability in the times that are going to come – and the times that are going to come are going to be very bad as well’
– Miriyam Aouragh, University of Westminster

Milano builds 35 km of new cycle paths beginning in May
L’utilizzo della bicicletta a Milano dovrà essere incentivato e fare un salto di qualità, continua Granelli: “Per questo stiamo mettendo in campo un’azione straordinaria di realizzazione di percorsi ciclabili e di Zone 30. Stiamo predisponendo atti e progetti per mettere in strada circa 35 km di nuovi percorsi ciclabili, da aggiungere ai poco più di 200 già esistenti, in un tempo compatibile con l’emergenza”.
Ghen Cô Vy – Vietnamese
How Vietnam beats Covid-19 Ghen Co Vy is a compound of the original song’s title ‘Ghen’ (Jealousy) and the Vietnamese pronunciation of ‘CoV,’ which is […]
Ghen Cô Vy – Corona virus Song | Together we #EndCoV”
Comment on YouTube: Riku Morwing: I’m a hospital cleaner in Finland. Listening to this song on bad days. Thank you and Godspeed Vietnam!

Agency in “forced” returns? A self-reflection exercise
by Maria Shaidrova
There is no better way to understand the turbulences of migration trajectories than to experience them yourself. I was studying the repetitive risk-taking among returnees in Nigeria when I was “returned” myself to a Covid-19 affected Holland. I am still wondering whether I indeed “had” a choice or if returning was “the only option”, considering the conditions I found myself in. These questions sound familiar for us researchers, don’t they? In distressful situations, people tend to search for safety, therefore, “returning ” can be an immediate reaction to confusion.[1] However, this immediate need does not imply “safety” and does not turn “home” into a long-term aspiration.

What I learned when my husband got sick with corona virus
When the husband of New York Times Magazine deputy editor Jessica Lustig is infected with the virus, her life changes in a matter of hours. In this essay, she describes the impact her husband’s diagnosis has had on the family life she, her 18 year-old daughter and her husband knew.

Spanish taxi driver & hospital staff
Danny Chen: “Such a heart warming clip.
Taxi driver in Spain who has been taking patients to the hospital free of charge got a call to pick up a patient from the hospital. Instead, when he arrived he was greeted by a standing ovation from hospital staff and what I assume is an envelope of money.
Disasters bring out the best and the worst of us. Let’s see more best like this.”

The corona crisis from a gender perspective
Swiss Association for Gender Studies (SAGS) is opening up a debate.
COVID-19 has strongly gendered effects. This entry offers an overview of some of these effects and their possible short- and long-term consequences. This overview is far from being exhaustive, but rather serves as a starting point for a broader debate among a diverse audience and as a plea for research into the issues raised here.
Protest against racism during Covid-19
Dit is waarom ik op de Dam stond: ‘Later vertel ik dit aan mijn kinderen’.
People explain why they attended a demonstration against racism and police violence at Dam Square in Amsterdam, despite the Covid-19 crisis.