US systemic violence amid the COVID-19 disaster: a conceptual critical disaster model for social workers

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is a community and global health disaster marked not only by illness, death and trauma, but also by historically structured economic, social and cultural causes, conditions and consequences. COVID-19 reveals, perpetuates and produces structural violence and disaster capitalism. To introduce social workers to a new way of thinking about disasters, we offer a critical conceptual model depicting the historic and systemic progression of what disaster scholars and practitioners refer to as ‘risk and vulnerability’ in the US context. We reflect on ‘returning to normal’, arguing that pre-COVID-19 existence was, in fact, abnormal and deadly. We call on social workers to radically re-imagine the future in solidarity with transformation efforts taking root, turning this disaster into an opportunity to build a healthier, more caring and more equitable world.