Li, Pengfei. “Conceptualizing China’s Spatial Lockdown during the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Neo-Liberal Society or a Pre-Liberal One?” Social Transformations in Chinese Societies 17, no. 2 (June 30, 2021): 1871–2673.
Abstract
The draconian measures to lock down communities and cities in China during the COVID-19 pandemic are unprecedented in human history. First the mega-city of Wuhan, then the province of Hubei, and eventually the whole nation of China, were shut down, surveilled and governed in a way that was identical to the 17th century plague-stricken European town re-portrayed and analyzed by Foucault. Instead of categorizing China’s COVID-19-triggered spatial and social governance as an ad hoc and hence abnormal disciplinary mechanism, this essay argues that the spatial lockdown and social control in China during the COVID-19 pandemic express the long existing and well-established governance model of China: that of a pre-liberal disciplinary society.
