- Published
- 04 February 2025
- Journal article
Speculating about futures with Covid reinfection in the UK: The body as a site of educated guesswork
- Authors
- Source
- Medical Anthropology
Abstract
We revisit a time in 2021 when people in the UK were coming to terms with an unwanted future characterised by chronic COVID-19 infection. Drawing on experiences of people who had already experienced COVID-19 infection, we explore how they made sense of newly perceived vulnerabilities and the possibility of reinfection. We highlight the work of speculating about the future, which involved making “educated guesses” based on embodied knowledge, and negotiating futures as understanding about different consequences of “living with COVID-19” moved in and out of view.
Rights
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. The terms on which this article has been published allow the posting of the Accepted Manuscript in a repository by the author(s) or with their consent.
Cite as
Dowrick, A., Qureshi, K. & Rai, T. 2025, 'Speculating about futures with Covid reinfection in the UK: The body as a site of educated guesswork', Medical Anthropology. https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2025.2461305