Open AccessUnravelling Discourses on COVID-19, South Asians and Punjabi Canadians
Author(s) -
Tania Das Gupta,
Sugandha Nagpal
Publication year - 2022
Publication title -
studies in social justice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.213
H-Index - 14
ISSN - 1911-4788
DOI - 10.26522/ssj.v16i1.3471
Subject(s) - narrative , racism , poverty , immigration , gender studies , covid-19 , sociology , resistance (ecology) , political science , inequality , law , disease , medicine , ecology , philosophy , linguistics , pathology , infectious disease (medical specialty) , biology , mathematical analysis , mathematics
This article uses critical discourse analysis to examine how the higher COVID-19 infection rates among South Asians in general, and Punjabis more specifically, have been represented by conservative politicians and their representatives as a consequence of cultural and religious practices. Two counter-narratives are discussed. The first substitutes the negative image of the Sikh Punjabi Canadian community with a celebratory and positive view of Sikh humanitarianism and community service. The second attributes the high numbers to class attributes such as precarious jobs, poverty-level wages, employment insecurity, lack of sick days, over-crowded housing, racism and lack of access to healthcare. We argue that the conservative explanation as well as the first counter-narrative reveal continuities in culturalist understandings of South Asian immigrants, albeit in slightly different ways. The second counter-narrative represents a discursive resistance by advancing a structural analysis of health and disease in immigrant communities.