Quarantine: Alienated Space by Expert Knowledge
In: Space and Culture, Band 23, Heft 3, S. 259-264
ISSN: 1552-8308
Based on an ethnographic account of a transitory space of an aircraft under lockdown, this article reflects on quarantine as the product of expert technocratic knowledge, which blurs fine-grained social moments and relationships to create a homogenous functional space. It argues that space under lockdown is a form of a functional alienated space produced and conditioned by non-transparent management mechanisms that are legitimized by seemingly routinized protocols and abstract representations. While this argument is not optimistic as regards capacity building for political or social change, it identifies current spatial configurations as a unique opportunity for experiencing how representations of space prevail over (struggles in) everyday life.