Vinicius Cardoso Reis

In the face of governmental denial and neglect, Brazil experienced a Covid-19 mortality rate exceeding 700,000, the world’s second highest. Covid-19 victims—those who lost loved ones to the virus and those who survived with long-term effects—are now seeking repair. My multi-sited ethnographic project explores disputes surrounding the concept of repair in the context of a struggling democracy. It sheds light on the ongoing impact of Covid-19 on social life and health mobilization in this highly unequal country. I will conduct fieldwork with the most influential group of movements, the National Network for Accountability and Repair to Covid-19 Victims, as they interact with state agents, practitioners, and other actors in the cities of Rio de Janeiro, Manaus, and Porto Alegre. Through participant observation, legal and media analysis, and interviews, I will study how those affected by Covid-19 conceptualize repair. In this regard, I will pay attention to how ideas of repair are shaped by experiences of state violence and histories of redress, thus informing victim-led political action. Ultimately, this research is concerned with how authoritarianism produced biological and sociopolitical continuities of the pandemic, leading victims to seek forms of healing and reckoning.