Coloniality of Coronavirus [video]

As coronavirus spreads, numerous inequalities and injustices are being exposed. Indigenous communities are warning of how unabated resource extraction threatens to expose them to coronavirus and further structural violence. As borders close to combat the disease, temporary foreign workers face special challenges. Migrants are still sitting in Canada’s prisons, considered hotbeds of infection for coronavirus.

Days following New Brunswick closing its borders to temporary foreign workers, the Canada Research Chair in Global and International Studies at St. Thomas University and the NB Media Co-op organized the panel, Coloniality of Coronavirus, on May 6, with Ajay Parasram and Syed Hussan to discuss the coloniality of coronavirus and what is being done to combat inequalities and promote a more just pandemic/post-pandemic response.

Watch the panel here –

Ajay Parasram is an Assistant Professor in the Departments of International Development Studies and History at Dalhousie University on unceded Mi’kmaq Territory. Parasram discussed how the coronavirus exacerbates the colonial matrix of power by way of laying bare the inhumanity of 21st century capitalist and settler-colonial ethics.

Syed Hussan is the executive director of Migrant Workers Alliance for Change, and a member of the Migrant Rights Network. Hussan discussed immigration rights and the status of income supports and access to healthcare for migrant workers.

The panel is part of a series of research-guided discussions of public issues arising from the coronavirus pandemic. These panel discussions provide critical insights to guide activism and public policy towards solutions for problems we believe were created by faulty institutions and thinking, which currently dominate public life.