The tragedy of the open society and COVID-19 pandemic: local community resistance to neoliberal hegemony (A multispecies ethnography)

ABSTRACT

As COVID-19 has spread globally, so too has public knowledge about the virus, through social media. In multispecies ethnography and health communication, this open and free flow of information has led to a phenomenon called the Tragedy of the Open Society. Located in the Kampung Laut community, this study collected data through in-depth online interviews to explore this interaction between multispecies ethnography and health communication perspectives in analyzing socio-cultural and health phenomena in a dynamic global ecological system. Information circulating among the Kampung Laut community is a valuable resource that is used by some actors to gain profit even though it harms others. As fear, prejudice, and discrimination circulate in the community, the Kampung Laut community fight on the basis of a contextual and flexible multispecies ecological system to survive. This paper raises awareness of the interdependence of humans and nature within the same ecological system.

KEYWORDS:

• Community
• neoliberalism
• multispecies
• health communication
• COVID-19

Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to the ‘local scientists’ of Kampung Laut community and members of the 2016–2018 Segara Anakan research team.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).