Civil and Uncivil Classes in the Light of the Pandemic: Postcolonial Perspectives on the Question of Who Cares | ||||
| Cairo Studies in English | ||||
| Article 4, Volume 2021, Issue 2, December 2021, Page 30-48 PDF (177.76 K) | ||||
| Document Type: Original Article | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/cse.2022.66176.1103 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Author | ||||
Caroline Rooney 
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| University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NX, UK | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| This article proposes that, in their different ways, the Arab uprisings and the pandemic of the corona virus direct our attention to the same question, this being: who cares? It revolves this question with respect to new social alignments that the pandemic has drawn attention to, with particular attention to the British context, and with respect to a critique of Hannah Arendt’s The Human Condition. The article argues that while Arendt presents a hierarchical understanding of labour and work in relation to political performance, the pandemic has served to re-evaluate key labour in a context of what may be termed civil and uncivil classes. It further explores viral dynamics in colonial and postcolonial terms, especially with reference to Indian postcolonial Novels: Rohinton Mistry’s A Fine Balance and Arundhati Roy’s The Ministry of Utmost Happiness. The readings of these novels show how they engage with the civil and uncivil in class terms. | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| civil; uncivil; class; key workers; pandemic; colonialism; ingratitude; care; reciprocity | ||||
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