Constructing the coronavirus crisis: narratives of time in British political discourse on COVID-19.

IF 1.1 3区社会学 Q3 POLITICAL SCIENCE

British Politics Pub Date : 2022-01-01 Epub Date: 2021-05-28 DOI:10.1057/s41293-021-00180-w

Lee Jarvis

引用次数: 0

Abstract

This article explores the importance of constructions of temporality within the UK government's discourse on the COVID-19 coronavirus crisis across the first six months of 2020. Drawing on over 120 official texts, it traces the emergence of discontinuous, linear, and cyclical conceptions of time in representations of the virus' pasts, presents, and futures. Three arguments are made. First, constructions of temporality were fundamental to the social, political, and historical positioning of the virus. Second, these constructions were constitutively important in producing, explaining, justifying and celebrating the UK government's response to the virus. And, third, tensions and inconsistencies between these constructions of temporality highlight the contingent, and constructed, character of official discourse, pulling into question the inevitability of the UK's response and opening opportunity for critical intervention.

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构建冠状病毒危机：英国关于 COVID-19 的政治言论中的时间叙事。

本文探讨了 2020 年前六个月英国政府关于 COVID-19 冠状病毒危机的论述中时间性建构的重要性。文章利用 120 多份官方文本，追溯了在描述病毒的过去、现在和未来时出现的非连续性、线性和周期性时间概念。文章提出了三个论点。首先，时间性的构建是病毒的社会、政治和历史定位的基础。其次，这些建构对英国政府应对病毒的措施的产生、解释、论证和庆祝都具有重要的构成性意义。第三，这些时间性建构之间的紧张和不一致凸显了官方话语的偶然性和建构性，使人们质疑英国应对措施的必然性，并为批判性干预提供了机会。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

British Politics POLITICAL SCIENCE-

CiteScore

2.40

自引率

9.10%

发文量

期刊介绍： British Politics offers the only forum explicitly designed to promote research in British political studies, and seeks to provide a counterweight to the growing fragmentation of this field during recent years. To this end, the journal aims to promote a more holistic understanding of British politics by encouraging a closer integration between theoretical and empirical research, between historical and contemporary analyses, and by fostering a conception of British politics as a broad and multi-disciplinary field of study. This incorporates a range of sub-fields, including psephology, policy analysis, regional studies, comparative politics, institutional analysis, political theory, political economy, historical analysis, cultural studies and social policy. While recognising the validity and the importance of research into specific aspects of British politics, the journal takes it to be a guiding principle that such research is more useful, and indeed meaningful, if it is related to the field of British politics in a broader and fuller sense. The scope of the journal will therefore be broad, incorporating a range of research papers and review articles from all theoretical perspectives, and on all aspects of British politics, including policy developments, institutional change and political behaviour. Priority will, however, be given to contributions which link contemporary developments in British politics to theoretical and/or historical analyses. The aim is as much to encourage the development of empirical research that is theoretically rigorous and informed, as it is to encourage the empirical application of theoretical work (or at least to encourage theorists to explicitly signify how their work could be applied in an empirical manner).