Epidemics, Xenophobia and Narratives of Propitiousness

Abstract

The heightening of exclusionary practices targeting migrants during epidemics often creates dilemmas for perpetrators whose resolution undermines the foundational structures of xenophobic narratives. For many perpetrators of xenophobic acts, epidemics amplify dilemmas rooted in the chasm between neat dichotomizing exclusionary tropes and messy social realities. Escape efforts involving fabricating categories of special migrants that can be spared maltreatment undermine the homogenization and ossification of communities, and the elision of inter-communal links that are fundament to xenophobic discourses. Exclusionary practices targeting Peul migrants from Guinea in Senegal during the 2013-2016 Ebola epidemic constitutes the arena for this study.

Keywords: Ebola; Peul migrants; Senegal; epidemics; intercommunal relations; xenophobia.