Coronavirus: notes on crisis, borders and the future of neoliberalism

Abstract

Every crisis is a moment both of the intensification of borders (social, economic, geographical …) and of their potential breaking down – a moment of the reaffirmation of a certain social model and of its questioning. Borders have acquired centrality in the imaginary of the management of the pandemic. They are a constitutive part of the pandemic condition, endowed with a new symbolic and cognitive force. The new importance of borders in times of a pandemic also shows the complexity of the concept of border itself and accelerates the trends underway regarding borders' transformations. The pandemic draws a new strategic border space and accentuates the complexity of the relationship between sovereignty and territory inherent to the process of globalization. The massive interventions by states to shore up the economy and support businesses and workers have the goal of stabilizing the economy, without any intention of entering into a logic of redistribution and expansion of public services. These massive bailouts may simply be the prelude to a more virulent phase, where a crisis of legitimacy and a crisis of social reproduction and of the global forms of governance of neoliberalism are interwoven. The contradiction between the free movement of capital and goods and the limited movement of labor that characterizes globalization can be further intensified, while the rhetoric of borders and control takes on new relevance.