Abstracts
Abstract
I reflect on how the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile became a question of bureaucratic knowledge and official documents. Through the analysis of COVID-19 permits, the tool implemented by the Chilean government in order to manage mobility in zones under lockdown, I focus on two features of documents: their denotational properties and their performative marginality. I argue that COVID-19 permits in Chile functioned as an “anti-document.” While they did not establish stable and meaningful connections with individuals’ daily lives, they produced a series of considerable effects on them, the most tangible of these effects probably being the detention and criminal prosecution of individuals caught on the street without the appropriate permit. In contrast with how documents participate in socio-legal configurations – being a means to an end – COVID-19 permits were central to the implementation of the confinement policy.
Keywords:
- Bureaucracy,
- documents,
- COVID-19,
- Chile,
- lockdown
Résumé
Je réfléchis à la manière dont la pandémie de COVID-19 au Chili est devenue une question de savoir bureaucratique et de documents officiels. Par l’intermédiaire de l’analyse des permis COVID-19, un outil mis en place par le gouvernement chilien afin de gérer la mobilité dans les zones confinées, je me concentre sur deux caractéristiques de ces documents : leurs propriétés dénotatives et leur marginalité performative. Je soutiens que les permis COVID-19 au Chili ont fonctionné comme des « anti-documents ». Bien qu’ils n’aient pas établi de liens stables, ni significatifs avec la vie quotidienne des individus, ils ont produit une série d’effets considérables sur eux ; l’effet le plus tangible étant probablement la détention et la poursuite pénale des individus arrêtés dans la rue sans permis approprié. Contrairement à la manière dont les documents participent aux configurations socio-juridiques, en étant un moyen de parvenir à une fin, les permis COVID-19 étaient au coeur de la mise en oeuvre de la politique de confinement.
Mots-clés :
- bureaucracie,
- documents,
- COVID-19,
- Chili,
- confinement
Appendices
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