Article,
Testing Care and Morality: Everyday Testing During COVID-19 in Denmark
Contributors
Nørholm, Charlotte
0000-0003-1147-1775
(Corresponding author)
[1]
Seeberg, Jens
0000-0002-3572-2754
[1]
Roepstorff, Andreas
0000-0002-3665-1708
[1]
Høybye, Mette Terp
0000-0001-6914-2697
[1]
[2]
Affiliations
- [1] Aarhus University [NORA names: AU Aarhus University; University; Denmark; Europe, EU; Nordic; OECD];
- [2] Elective Surgery Centre, Silkeborg Regional Hospital, Silkeborg, Denmark [NORA names: Central Denmark Region; Hospital; Denmark; Europe, EU; Nordic; OECD]
Abstract
COVID-testing was central to control the spread of infection in Denmark. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork, we show that testing was not just a diagnostic sign; it was also a biosocial practice that enacted a public health morality, centered on responsibility, care, and belonging. We argue that testing led to a public healthicization of everyday life, as it moralized individual and collective behavior and created a moral divide between the tested and the untested. By attending to COVID-19 testing as a material-semiotic sign, we show how testing is embedded within a particular cultural and moral framework of the Danish welfare state.
Keywords
COVID testing,
COVID-19,
COVID-19 testing,
Danish welfare state,
Denmark,
Everyday,
behavior,
care,
collective behavior,
diagnostic signs,
divide,
ethnographic fieldwork,
everyday life,
everyday tests,
fieldwork,
framework,
infection,
life,
moral divide,
moral framework,
morality,
practice,
response,
signs,
spread,
spread of infection,
state,
test,
testing care,
welfare state
