The epidemic of COVID-19 appears to be reshaping the world, separating before and after, present and past. Its perceived novelty raises the question of what role the past might play in the present epidemic and in responses to it. Taking the view that the past has not passed, but is present in is material and immaterial remains, and continuously emerging from these, we argue that it should not be studied as closed narration but through the array of its traces, which constitute the texture of the present. To that end, and building on long-term ethnographic research on past and present epidemics in western Kenya, we assemble here some preliminary observations on the first weeks of COVID-19 in Kenya. We explore how the acute epidemic crisis currently unfolding is intertwined with layered fragments of earlier epidemic events, attending to material infrastructures, institutional practices, and ritual responses, to the presence of virally loaded bodies, pharmaceuticals, and their residues, and to the resurgence of often painful memories and emotions. People in this region have experienced a long century of epidemics and anti-epidemic measures of varying duration and intensity, from colonial and postcolonial sleeping sickness and smallpox to HIV/AIDS and more recently cancer, alongside actual or anticipated outbreaks of cholera and Ebola. This local perception of one long epidemic qualifies the notion of a radical temporal break that the COVID-19 pandemic is often associated with in European conversations.

中文翻译：

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流行病层：肯尼亚西部 COVID-19 最初几周的过去

COVID-19 的流行似乎正在重塑世界，将之前和之后、现在和过去分开。它的新颖性引发了一个问题，即过去在当前的流行病中可能扮演什么角色，以及如何应对这种流行病。考虑到过去没有过去，而是存在于物质和非物质的遗存中，并不断从这些遗存中浮现，我们认为不应将其作为封闭的叙述来研究，而应通过其痕迹的排列来研究，这些痕迹构成了历史的肌理。现在。为此，在对肯尼亚西部过去和现在流行病的长期人种学研究的基础上，我们在此收集了对肯尼亚 COVID-19 最初几周的一些初步观察结果。我们探讨了当前正在展开的急性流行病危机如何与早期流行病事件的分层片段交织在一起，关注物质基础设施、制度实践和仪式反应，关注携带病毒的尸体、药物及其残留物的存在，以及经常痛苦的记忆和情绪的复苏。该地区的人们经历了长达一个世纪的流行病和不同持续时间和强度的抗流行病措施，从殖民和殖民后昏睡病和天花到艾滋病毒/艾滋病和最近的癌症，以及实际或预期的霍乱和埃博拉爆发。这种对长期流行病的本地看法符合 COVID-19 大流行在欧洲对话中经常与之相关的根本性时间中断的概念。以及经常痛苦的记忆和情绪的复苏。该地区的人们经历了长达一个世纪的流行病和不同持续时间和强度的抗流行病措施，从殖民和殖民后昏睡病和天花到艾滋病毒/艾滋病和最近的癌症，以及实际或预期的霍乱和埃博拉爆发。这种对一场长期流行病的本地看法符合欧洲对话中经常与 COVID-19 大流行相关的根本性时间中断的概念。以及经常痛苦的记忆和情绪的复苏。该地区的人们经历了长达一个世纪的流行病和不同持续时间和强度的抗流行病措施，从殖民和殖民后昏睡病和天花到艾滋病毒/艾滋病和最近的癌症，以及实际或预期的霍乱和埃博拉爆发。这种对长期流行病的本地看法符合 COVID-19 大流行在欧洲对话中经常与之相关的根本性时间中断的概念。