Disaster nationalism in the digital age: reimagining the (inter)national community through pandemic narratives in China

Dr Chenchen Zhang, Lecturer in Politics and International Relations, Queen’s University Belfast

Disasters and crises create disruptions and insecurities that potentially both threaten and reinforce the existing political order. The COVID-19 crisis in China that unfolded in the spring of 2020 represents what Edkins calls a “trauma time”, the disruptive nature of which urges the state to move quickly to “put in place as fast as possible a linear narrative of origins” (Edkins 2006: 107). This talk will examine how such linear narratives of grief, solidarity, and heroism are produced to nationalize the collective memory of trauma time and monopolize the ways in which life is grievable. On the other hand, it will also show how alternative expressions of grief, rage, and critical solidarity challenge the official script of disaster nationalism in the digital space.