Sickness, death and burial during the COVID-19 pandemic in Lesotho: changing faces of cultural norms

ABSTRACT

Basotho have historically been victims of culturally devastating pandemics and epidemics which include the rinderpest epidemic of 1898–1902, the Spanish influenza/flu of 1918, HIV/AIDS and of late COVID-19. This spelt disaster on practices associated with caring for the sick and dying but COVID-19 remains the most memorable. This study, which is based on Lesotho experiences, uses the health communication theory, to discuss the effects of the pandemic on sickness, death and funeral rites in Lesotho during the period 2020. The purpose is to extend knowledge of how ordinary people struggled to conserve their everyday ways of life in the face of this existential threat and circulating rumours. Data was gathered through interviews, personal observations and reappraisal of secondary. The study is significant in that it calls to attention negotiating the incorporation of people’s way of life when curtailing pandemics in order to cultivate reasonable cooperation, which in turn cut costs and increases people’s confidence in the government. This kind of working together has generally been elusive in Lesotho’s confrontation with epidemics. The study found that poor communication and perceived government interference with their culture left families affected by the pandemic feeling guilty, distraught, confused, and traumatised.

KEYWORDS:

• Rites
• health communication
• cosmology
• cultural studies approach
• disinformation

Disclosure statement

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

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Joshua Chakawa

Joshua Chakawa is a senior lecturer in the Department of Historical Studies at National University of Lesotho. He has researched and published on indigenous knowledge systems, diseases and society, sanctions, borderlands, conflict and peacebuilding in Africa.

Masemote Grace Molale

Masemote Grace Molale is a lecturer in the Department of Historical Studies at National University of Lesotho. Her research interests are social problems, social impact assessment, resettlement issues and application of qualitative and quantitative approaches