(Between abnormality and uncertainty. Imaginaries of the future during the COVID-19 pandemic in Tilcara, Jujuy, Argentina)

Abstract

In this article, we explore the dynamic conceptions of normality and the imaginaries of the future during the COVID-19 pandemic in Tilcara (Jujuy, Argentina). We focus on the analysis of three ethnographic moments, that emerge from the field work carried out during 2020 and 2021. Our objective was to record the changes that have occurred in the bodily and material regimes imposed by the epidemiological characteristics of the pandemic, as gathered in biosafety protocols. To do this, we focus on certain antecedents produced by anthropology regarding the study of situations of uncertainty and hope, on the one hand, and disasters, on the other. Thus, we approach the repercussions that these novel regimes had on the ways of conceiving normality and imagining the future in this context of deep uncertainty among residents of Tilcara, mainly considering the economic dependence of the town regarding the tourism industry, which was the most affected by the global interruption of mobility in 2020 and 2021. Thus, we distinguish four instances linked to the social construction of normality, which do not follow one another as stages but correspond to overlapping processes: a pre-pandemic normality, a state of abnormality, the need for normalization, and the gradual construction of a new normality. In this sense, the COVID-19 pandemic prompted us to develop research tools aimed at sustaining estrangement, within the framework of constant normalization. Our field work was challenged by changes in biosafety protocols, and we had to adapt to this urgent, dynamic, and emerging field without putting our health or that of others at risk.