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Theorizing the virus: abjection and Abjection and

the COVID-19
the COVID-19 pandemic pandemic
Larissa Pfaller
€rnberg,
Institute of Sociology, Friedrich-Alexander University Erlangen-Nu
Erlangen, Germany 821
Received 22 June 2020
Abstract Revised 25 July 2020
Purpose – Using Kristeva’s theory of abjection, this article analyzes the psychosocial reality of the Accepted 26 July 2020
coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, advancing the understanding of exclusion and stigmatization
as forms of social abjection.
Design/methodology/approach – The article applies abjection to understand how severe acute respiratory
syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is both a medical emergency but also a cultural challenge. The analysis
is structured in three dimensions: (1) the transgressive potential of the virus, (2) forms of cultural coping with its
threat and (3) the moral order of abjection.
Findings – The virus is an existential challenge to cultural boundaries and subjectivity. Strategies to prevent
its further spread (e.g. handwashing, “social distancing” and closing national borders) are thus culturally
significant. The virus triggers the processes of abjection, (re-)establishing challenged boundaries and
exclusionary social hierarchies. Collateral consequences of protective measures vary across regions and social
groups, creating and exacerbating social inequalities.
Research limitations/implications – Practices of abjecting the virus go far beyond handwashing,
masking, etc. The virus, an invisible enemy to be expunged, is also a hybrid of threatening pathogen and
human body; it is not the virus but people who experience exclusion, discrimination and disrespect. Thus,
cultural sociology must address the moral economy of abjection.
Social implications – As Kristeva insists, the abject threatens both the subject and the symbolic order.
Overcoming social abjection means recognizing and strengthening individual and community agency and
requires understanding vulnerability as an anthropological condition, enacting caring relationships and acting
in solidarity.
Originality/value – This article demonstrates that abjection is a suitable theoretical tool for analyzing the
social dynamics of the COVID-19 crisis.
Keywords Cultural sociology, Transgression, Abjection, Kristeva, COVID-19, Pandemic
Paper type Conceptual paper

1. Introduction: understanding the social reality of the pandemic

This article was written in July 2020, in the midst of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
pandemic. Therefore, it is not easy to start with general considerations and classifications of
the global situation vis-a-vis the pandemic. At present, we see a very varied picture of the
development of the pandemic across the globe, while some countries, due to effective
containment of the infections, are able to roll back their prevention measures, the virus
continues to spread in other countries.
Many governments have implemented far-reaching interventions to decrease COVID-19
infection rates and prevent a collapse of healthcare systems. However, collateral
consequences of lockdown measures, such as closing borders and the resulting economic
shock, vary across states, areas and social groups. The crisis is not only creating new social
inequalities but also exacerbating existing ones, as the negative consequences particularly
affect vulnerable and previously marginalized groups (Roudometof, 2020). For example, older
persons in Spanish care homes—locked up with the sick and the dead—were simply
International Journal of Sociology
and Social Policy
Vol. 40 No. 9/10, 2020
This article was written as part of the project “The Imaginary at the Boundaries of Sociality.” The project pp. 821-829
is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG, project number: 417783052). I would like to thank © Emerald Publishing Limited
0144-333X
the anonymous reviewers of the article for their helpful comments and valuable support. DOI 10.1108/IJSSP-06-2020-0243
IJSSP abandoned to their own devices (BBC, 2020), and Singapore’s foreign workers are forced to
40,9/10 live in cramped quarters and dormitories (Cai and Lai, 2020). African Americans are dying of
COVID-19 at three times the rate of White Americans (Pilkington, 2020), and in South Africa,
murder and abuse of women and children have increased following the lifting of the alcohol
ban during lockdown (news24, 2020).
Sociologists and social scientists, alongside virologists and epidemiologists, are now
increasingly stating their views in the media on their interpretation of the dynamics of the
822 pandemic and the implementation of preventive measures (Pfister, 2020). In the face of the
ongoing crisis, sociology not only has the task of identifying the social effects of these
measures and the sometimes serious consequences for the population and community but
also of providing approaches for understanding its basic social mechanisms. Thus, instead of
understanding social conditions as mere “secondary effects” of necessary medical practices
of protection, sociology is able to describe and analyze these effects regarding their inherent
cultural significance and “social reality” (Pfister, 2020, paras. 1–2). The COVID-19 pandemic
has caused an unparalleled crisis worldwide and led to drastic political measures
implemented in order to decrease the number of infected persons and fatalities. However,
one can observe that the virus, as an infectious agent, is treated and targeted far beyond
medicating infected bodies.
Using the concept of abjection, as presented by the French philosopher and psychoanalyst
Julia Kristeva (1982), we can shed light on these cultural dimensions: severe acute respiratory
syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is not only a medical emergency but also a cultural
challenge. The abject threatens the boundaries between subject and object, human and
nonhuman, nature and culture, and thus challenges the social order as well as the subject.
Therefore, it cannot but be repelled and radically dismissed [1]. This process of abjection and
the reestablishment of borders thus become necessary safeguards of culture and subjectivity.
It is the transgressive, and therefore destabilizing, potential of the virus as an abject that
triggers processes of abjection, which again (re-)stabilize the challenged boundaries—that
maintain, apart from social cohesion, social hierarchy and exclusion.
Although this article aims to provide a cultural-sociological analysis for understanding
the COVID-19 crisis, it does not intend to attenuate the danger of the virus. Quite on the
contrary, it aims to demonstrate how the pandemic threatens not only our physical existence
but also our cultural identity. For this purpose, Kristeva’s theory of abjection seems
particularly appropriate. By combining psychoanalysis and anthropology, Kristeva succeeds
in establishing a concept of culture that links the realms of the individual and the social. It is
therefore ideally qualified to make phenomena on these different dimensions theoretically
addressable, and thus, to investigate the psychosocial dynamics of the pandemic.
In the following section, I will explore how the virus can be understood in terms of abject
and abjection. Therefore, the analysis is carried out to explore three questions: (1) How is the
virus challenging existential (biological, physical, social) boundaries (transgressive
potential)? (2) How are people and governments responding to these threats in the
pandemic (cultural coping)? and (3) How is the pandemic creating new and exacerbating old
forms of exclusion and stigmatization (moral order)? Finally, I will discuss how the
transgressive potential of the virus challenges the very essence of our culture and
subjectivity and derive suggestions on how to overcome social abjection.

2. Virus and abjection

While “abjection” has already found its way into cultural and aesthetic theory (Menninghaus,
2003, p. 365), it has only received marginal attention in sociology: it is predominantly referred
to in feminist theory (e.g. Butler, 1993). Approaches that use the concept of abjection mainly
refer to The Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection, written in 1982 by Julia Kristeva.
 Kristeva makes a distinction between the abject and the processes of abjection. The abject is Abjection and
the object that confronts subjects with physical aspects of their bodies of which they are rarely in the COVID-19
control (e.g. menstruation, expelling waste). The lack of power over certain bodily fluids
(“impurity”) is a painful reminder of human creaturehood and can produce negative feelings
pandemic
such as shame or fear. Thus, subjects react aversively to the abject and constantly endeavor to
manage physical boundaries and keep distance between the self, its environment, and the abject.
Yet, it is this process of exclusion that constitutes and maintains subjectivity. Thus, the abject is
always related to the subject and the boundary that is constantly established by abjection. In 823
discussing with Freud and Lacan, Kristeva sees the origin of all forms of subjectivity in the
separation of subject and object in early childhood, while still in the preoral phase. According to
Kristeva, in order to draw a line between the self and the environment, something must be
delimited or separated, that is, abjected. Here, the sensation of disgust establishes an aversive
relationship between the body and the abject. For Kristeva (1982), disgust with food (e.g.
expelling breast milk) is the most elementary and archaic form of abjection.
The term abjection describes the process of exclusion—both in the early childhood
subjectification and in the later maintenance of being a subject. While the abject is the rejected
and excluded entity, abjection also refers to the physical and emotional state of the subject
when confronted with the abject. Thus, the process of abjection becomes the most
fundamental precondition for constituting the subject. At the same time, abjection is not a
one-time procedure but a constant process that must be carried out continuously. The abject
is not simply annihilated by exclusion but remains threatening as it keeps challenging the line
between subject and object and thus threatens the cultural identity. Although the abject is
actually part of the self, it is, at the same time, intolerable (e.g. death or excrement) and must
be radically excluded, that is to say, abjected.

2.1 The transgressive potential of the virus: “the enemy is already within [2]”
For Kristeva, the threat of the abject derives mainly from its transgressive nature: “It is thus
not lack of cleanliness or health that causes abjection but what disturbs identity, system,
order. What does not respect borders, positions, rules. The in-between, the ambiguous, the
composite” (1982, p. 4). Thus, things are abject not because they are dirty or can cause
diseases but because the abject’s transgression of spheres, which should be separated, is
experienced as “impure.” Analytically, Kristeva (1982) distinguishes between different kinds
of cultural boundaries: a line between subject and object, a line that separates inside and
outside of the self, a line that defines the inside and the outside of the body, a line between
nature and culture, and last, one that distinguishes between human and nonhuman entities.
Applying Kristeva’s concept of abjection to the pandemic, we can see how SARS-CoV-2 can
be described as abject because it challenges boundaries and contravenes social demarcations. It
is in the very nature of viruses to transcend national borders, as well as culturally established
lines. From a medical perspective, the virus violates the body by invading through mucous
membranes, but it also crosses interpersonal lines by being transferred from one person to
another. By crossing administrative borders, the COVID-19 pandemic is also challenging
national governance and health systems. By transgressing to within bodies, it dissolves the
lines between subject and object, human and nonhuman. As it was initially transmitted from a
bat to a human individual, SARS-CoV-2 was classified as a zoonosis—thus, an infectious
disease that crosses another boundary, the one between human beings and animals.
All of these boundaries are necessary for maintaining our bodily and personal integrity.
Kristeva’s ideas reveal the importance of managing the boundaries between persons,
between subject and object and between human and nonhuman. Thus, it is not only the
medical threat, but the transgressive potential of the virus that challenges our subjectivity
and society. Thus, the virus is something to be excluded or in Kristeva’s terms, “abjected.”
IJSSP The horror associated with the abject nature of the virus also expresses itself on the
40,9/10 linguistic level. Leading politicians introduce the virus as something that needs to be fought;
in his speech to the French citizens in March 2020, Emmanuel Macron stated that “Nous
sommes en guerre”—“We are at war” (Macron, 2020), and in April 2020, Donald Trump
tweeted about the virus as an “Invisible Enemy. It is tough and smart, but we are tougher and
smarter!” (Trump, 2020). Thus, the virus became clothed in metaphors of war and enemies,
which are social and not medical categories. However, this process involves more than just
824 language: by threatening existential boundaries, the virus triggers processes of abjection that
manifest on several levels.

2.2 Cultural coping: wash your hands!

In order to lower the infection rates of COVID-19 and to prevent a collapse of healthcare
systems, governments around the globe implemented far-reaching protective and behavioral
measures. In order to protect their own residents, national governments, one by one, closed
their borders, implemented travel restrictions and locked down public life. Moreover, the
measures taken by the governments were not limited to closing national borders or
institutions, but also specifically affected the individual body, which was to be kept in check
with multiple hygiene measures. As the virus’ infectious potential unfolds principally
through the mouth, nose and hands (that is, touching the mouth, nose or eyes), populations
were called to start managing the outer boundaries of their bodies by wearing masks,
washing their hands more frequently or keeping physical distance from others. Thus, in order
to protect individual bodies from invasion, hygiene recommendations have spread around
the globe at much the same speed as the virus.
Excepting their epidemiologic and medical indication, protective practices have a
symbolic value, as they indicate the need to maintain individual bodily integrity and cultural
order. Thus, the measures against COVID-19 show a common cultural pattern: they concern
the management of boundaries. All measures, whether they are applied to the bodily,
household or national border, are interacting with the ambiguity of the virus, that is, its
characteristic of being everywhere and nowhere, and its merging with different bodies and
surroundings. The external boundaries, orifices and weak points of one’s own body (e.g. skin,
mouth and nose) must be manipulated, equipped and cared for in a special way to prevent the
virus from crossing the line between outside and inside the body. The virus must be washed
off the skin, neutralized by disinfection and kept away by masks. The challenge of various
previously established boundaries is also transferred from the surface of the body and
manifests on a global level in closing boarders and travel restrictions. These reactions
concern managing, (re-)defining and stabilizing demarcations that were undermined and
challenged by the “invisible enemy.”
However, the measures implemented by governments were received differently within the
respective populations, as can be illustrated by the example of mask wearing (B€ohrer, 2020).
Some reject wearing masks because they feel that their individual freedom and human rights
are compromised. For others, they provide a sense of security. Furthermore, in Western
countries, there has been an interesting development in the estimation of the effectiveness of
masks over time. Not only was their effectiveness doubted at the beginning, but their wearing
was even considered counterproductive. In comparison to this early cynicism, masks are now
officially recommended. Naturally, there are intercultural differences; masks were already
widespread in Asia however it took some time before they were accepted into daily life in
Europe.
Despite national strategies to cope with the virus as a biomedical threat, one can also
observe reactions that have not been implemented by governments but are also not
exclusively located on the individual level. Using Kristeva’s approach, which considers the
psychic development always in interrelation to the cultural order, it becomes evident that
different cultures find different psychosocial techniques to deal with the threat of COVID-19. Abjection and
For example, the international press has repeatedly reported that especially Germans are the COVID-19
hoarding toilet paper (Dege, 2020) and that long queues are forming in front of gun stores in
the USA (Matza, 2020). While the former became a running joke (Roudometof, 2020), the latter
pandemic
was observed with some concern. There might be some practical explanations here, for
example, there could be a shortage of toilet paper due to delayed deliveries, and guns can be
useful to protect one’s own belongings from looting. However, these reactions also point to the
fact that people are confronted with their own vulnerability. Alongside Levi-Strauss and 825
Bataille, Kristeva dealt with the works of Mary Douglas and describes the elementary
cultural distinction between pure and impure, as anthropologists have already shown in
archaic cultures. Buying toilet paper thus helps to symbolically maintain the “self’s clean and
proper body” (Kristeva, 1982, p. 75) and its status within the social order. Although buying
toilet paper and hoarding guns are not primarily aimed at defending against the virus, these
practices are nevertheless forms of cultural coping with the threats of the pandemic, facing
the horror of abjection and the challenge of bodily integrity and social order. While all
cultures have to find a way to cope with the abject, the methods are quite different: the US
American society repeatedly makes reference to the Second Amendment, and the German
culture is known for its penchant to keep things neat and tidy. Of course, any measures that
can be taken also depend on the given organizational and legal conditions. The gun laws in
the USA, for example, are certainly more liberal. However, this may not be a coincidence, since
legislation always results from a cultural and historical background.

2.3 The moral order of the pandemic: social distancing and social exclusion
Abjection is not limited to the individual level but also includes a normative cultural
dimension. In his 1930 essay Abjection and Miserable Forms, Georges Bataille (1999; see also
Gilleard and Higgs, 2011) traces the social exclusion and cultural devaluation of the “lower
classes” back to their miserable living conditions, in which it was impossible to avoid dirt and
disease. Kristeva’s considerations are not limited to inner psychic processes either, as she also
considers abjection beyond structures of social inequality (cf. Gilleard and Higgs, 2011,
p. 136). While Bataille focuses on class, Kristeva explores gender in terms of power relations:
it is female bodies in particular whose bodily fluids (menstrual blood) are considered impure
and who, as mothers (and caregivers), also have to deal with excrement. “Maternal authority”
becomes the guarantee of purity and distinguishes, within a binary logic, between “proper-
clean and improper-dirty” (Kristeva, 1982, pp. 71–72).
As previously indicated in the Introduction, analysis can distinguish between existing
inequalities that have been reinforced due to the pandemic and new forms of exclusion that
particularly affect the (potentially) infected. Thus, the situation appears exceptionally severe
for vulnerable and marginalized groups, such as older persons, the working class and women.
Not only are women in danger of domestic violence under lockdown (Weil, 2020), they also
work more often in “essential” jobs and are therefore exposed to more stress and a higher risk
of infection (Conley, 2020). In addition, initial studies show that gender equality customs hard-
won in recent decades are falling behind in favor of old role patterns (household, childcare)
and a backslide into retraditionalization (Wenham et al., 2020).
However, those who are (potentially) infected or infectious are facing new forms of
stigmatization and exclusion as the imagery of the threatening virus is inevitably merged
with their hosting bodies. Following Bataille, abjection results in degradation and the
exclusion from the “moral community” (Bataille, 1999, p. 10) of those who were invaded by the
abject, Susan Sontag (1979) states that the idea of excluding and stigmatizing (allegedly)
infected or infectious people is as old as the discovery of infectious diseases. In her analysis of
public perspectives on cancer, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, Sontag describes how managing
these diseases led to moralizing practices (cordoning off whole cities, marking houses or even
IJSSP tattooing people who are infected). The COVID-19 pandemic has produced very similar
40,9/10 mechanisms and ideas. Asian countries monitored infected people using mobile phone data
and corresponding apps and maps, and in the global West, people of presumed Asian origin
face increasing stigmatization and discrimination (Park, 2020): the Wuhan soccer team
stranded in Spain reported that hotels cancelled the rooms that they had already booked and
that teams from other nations refused to play against them. “They thought the virus itself
was coming,” reported their coach (Panja and Bayer, 2020). Healthcare workers even report
826 threats and assaults when it becomes known that they are treating COVID-19 patients
(Miranda et al., 2020). Thus, the pandemic created a moral order: some are now, in Sontag’s
words, citizens of the “kingdom of the sick,” entering the “night-side of life, a more onerous
citizenship,” while some may remain in the “kingdom of the well” (Sontag, 1979, p. 3).
The concept of abjection not only demonstrates a deeper cultural significance of hygiene
practices but also reveals lines of conflict, for example, in discrimination and social inequality.
From the perspective of cultural sociology, studying the protective and safeguarding
measures taken against SARS-CoV-2 gives rise to the question of the symbolic nature of
cleanliness and purification. Studies on the cultural dimensions of hygiene and cleaning
rituals reveal that the construction of purity is a crucial element of social order (Douglas,
1984), and efforts to maintain or re-establish this order are often at the expense of those who
are considered as “impure,” infected and contagious (Bataille, 1999; Douglas, 1984;
Sontag, 1979).

3. Discussion and conclusion: addressing the moral economy of abjection—

vulnerability, care and solidarity
By using Kristeva’s theory of abjection, this article aimed to develop a cultural-sociological
approach to analyze the social reality of the COVID-19 pandemic. In this feminist approach,
Kristeva succeeded in developing a theoretical concept that spells out the interrelation
between subject, cultural order and inherent social inequality. It provides a framework to
understand the psychosocial dynamics of the COVID-19 pandemic. Furthermore, Kristeva’s
theory also allows the understanding of forms of exclusion and stigmatization as forms of
social abjection.
However, there are some limitations to this approach. The analysis has demonstrated that
the existing measures can be understood as reactions to the transgressive nature of the virus.
Yet, is there not always an emancipatory potential in transgression? It seems too early, and
inappropriate, to recognize a concept such as this in the current crisis, especially in view of the
rising global death toll. Only time will reveal whether the nations and populations of the world
will use the breakdown of order to change existing inequalities, which have only been
intensified and made more visible by the pandemic. Nevertheless, there are voices in academic
and public discourse that point to this opportunity and demand for creating a new social order
(Roudometof, 2020; Ule, 2020). In addition, the article has demonstrated how the theory of
abjection can be applied to the examples of cultural practices that were implemented in
response to the pandemic. The goal of future research should be to examine the conceptual
framework outlined in this article. Thus, further analysis would need to include practices that
have not yet been adopted and some that may challenge the theory. Furthermore, when
analyzing the COVID-19 pandemic, one is confronted with the challenge of ontological
ambiguities. SARS-CoV-2 has been introduced to the world’s populations as a microscopically
small pathogen, a tiny nonhuman actor: invisible to the naked eye, it became visible and
experienceable only through the various measures taken to decrease infection rates and
through the presence of infected bodies. What then is “the abject”? Is it the virus, the infection or
the infected body? Is it the relationship between infected and uninfected bodies?
What can be observed is that the practices of abjecting the virus go far beyond hygiene,
protection or physical distance. Considering the virus as an invisible enemy that needs to be
fought and excluded and at the same time a hybrid of threatening pathogen and human body, Abjection and
it is thus not the virus but the people who experience exclusion, discrimination and disrespect. the COVID-19
Therefore, cultural sociology has to address not only the symbolic significance of hygiene
practices but also the moral economy of abjection. While abjection as an inner psychological
pandemic
process, as Kristeva describes it, is necessary for the development of the self, exclusion,
discrimination and stigma as consequences of social abjection are issues that society has to
face and address. A number of authors have already made suggestions on how to counter
such forms of social abjection. Harris (2009) has examined the stigmatization of hepatitis C 827
patients and the experience of hepatitis C as abjection. She draws on Shildrick (2001) when
noting that the stigma of chronic diseases can only be disrupted by establishing new
conceptions of vulnerability: “We are all vulnerable – bodily, socially and psychically”
(Harris, 2009, p. 49). Giving a voice to the stigmatized and telling their narratives is a reminder
that every person has a “dual citizenship” (Sontag, 1979, p. 3) in both the kingdom of the sick
and the kingdom of the well. In addition, when analyzing the abjection of the fourth age,
Gilleard and Higgs point to the significance of care as a potential counterbalance. In
acknowledging universal vulnerability, it is possible to establish a “caring relationship” while
“offering personal kindness and humanity” as a way to encounter exclusion (Gilleard and
Higgs, 2011, p. 141). Further, Ayalon et al. (2020) observe growing ageism during the
pandemic and raise the notion of solidarity. To explicitly declare solidarity with groups
beyond social divisions and to act accordingly can reduce and overcome discrimination and
disrespect (Ayalon et al., 2020, pp. 2–3). In the current pandemic, civil society already offers
many examples of how these ideas can be brought to life—not only in its appeals to the public
but also in its actions. For example, within neighborhoods, people help each other by going
shopping for older people (e.g. Invisible Hands, 2020) and reintegrate into the community
those who have been (even more) isolated by the lockdown measures. The representatives of
such initiatives note that the particularly precarious situation of people who have already
been affected by exclusion and stigmatization; for them “. . .nothing much has changed. The
norm of their lifestyle has just been converted to a global norm,” as author Noor Bano Khan
describes the situation of nonbinary and transgender persons in Pakistan (Khan, 2020). Thus,
through the consequences of “social distancing,” people around the globe can now experience
the same vulnerability that was before only felt by some. Many of the movements repeatedly
and explicitly refer to the fundamental values of modern society and the universality of
human rights. In this vein, the European Public Service Unions, the AGE Platform Europe
and the European Disability Forum have explored the precarious situation of people in long
term care under conditions of the COVID-19 pandemic and, in an joint letter, urge the
European Parliament to use “all its power and taking any action needed, that would shed light
over these breaches of human dignity” (EPSU et al., 2020).
From these examples, we can conclude that in order to overcome social abjection, three
things seem to be essential: understanding and experiencing vulnerability as a basic
anthropological condition, enacting caring relationships and demonstrating solidarity. As we
learned from Kristeva (1982), the abject threatens both the individual self and the symbolic
order. Thus, the way to overcome abjection is through recognition and empowerment to
strengthen individual agency as well as that of the community: this would be “a hopeful move
towards a new set of ethics that will embrace an openness to the abject Other” (Harris, 2009,
p. 49).

Notes
1. The terms abject and abjection may be derived from the Latin ab-iectum, the outcast, and ab-icere, to
cast away (Menninghaus, 2003, p. 366).
2. I borrowed this headline from The New York Times (Erlanger, 2020).
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Corresponding author
Larissa Pfaller can be contacted at: larissa.pfaller@fau.de

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