Quarantine

Can one argue that COVID-19 was a galvanising force for major political uprisings? If the global contemporary and neo-liberal capitalism was already on the brink of collapse prior to this paradigm shift, the virus has only further emphasised the precarity and implicit inequality of such systems. Like a kettle on the boil, the pressurised conditions produced by these systems will eventually boil over levelling the liquids out of their vessels.

Wherever you are, the first few months of 2021 has seen a continuation of the widespread devastation marked in 2020 by the global escalation of COVID-19 and the subsequent shift of international discourse, geopolitics, and the liveability index. This issue, Quarantine, responds to our new-found conditions and outlines a multiplicity of viewpoints on the topic highlighting the inherent tension, anxiety, and withdrawal marked by this period.