COVID-19: THE 'INVISIBLE ENEMY' AND CONTINGENT RACISM: .

In this article, the author provides a narrative of her experience as an Italian undertaking fieldwork in Greece while the epidemic was in full swing. She reflects on representations of 'the invisible enemy': an empty category, she claims, which has been contingently filled and morally loaded, resting on pre-existing categories, such as stereotypical representations of nations. The invisibility of 'the enemy' has in fact been rendered visible through what she refers to as contingent racism; this includes the ubiquitous and hence powerful use of irony and satire at the expense of China and Italy, but also expands to the use of banal and convenient tropes of accusation and derision among European Union member states, bringing back to the fore the North-South divide and its power imbalances. The author suggests that the Covid-19 crisis has ultimately provoked a veritable epidemic of contingent racism on multiple levels by stirring stereotypes and cultural prejudices which are rooted in time and rapidly renewed; its effect is all but contingent, and likely to accompany us far beyond the Covid-19 crisis itself.