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Social distancing has contributed enormously to controlling the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic. From Latin America to East Asia and Africa, the majority of the urban dwellers are living in congested, ignored and criminalised squatter settlements with meagre resources restricting them to exercise social distancing. Stretching boundaries of the theory of planned behaviour, this article discusses how the utopia of social distancing interacts with the dystopia of living in slums. Based on participant observation and in-depth interviews, this article compares the lived experiences of the urban poor of Pakistan and Brazil to explore their subjectivities concerning the pandemic. This research finds that neglect of the “social distancing” is premised on socio-economic structures shaping socio-spatial realities of the urban poor. The exclusion and otherisation of these poor by the politicians, bureaucracies, and society at large is both discriminatory and criminalising. It further reveals that the absence of “social distancing” exhibits the socio-economic helplessness of such dwellers who mainly struggle to attain their basic survival needs. Therefore, the adoption of a class-sensitive approach to the pandemic is pivotal to devising an inclusive policy framework addressing the marginalised geographies.

Utopia of social distancing and dystopia of living in slums: urban poor’s perspectives from the global south and the theory of planned behaviour