Who We Test For: Aligning Relational and Public Health Responsibilities in COVID-19 Testing in Scotland

Med Anthropol. 2024 May 18;43(4):277-294. doi: 10.1080/01459740.2024.2349514. Epub 2024 May 7.

Abstract

COVID-19 testing programs in the UK often called on people to test to "protect others." In this article we explore motivations to test and the relationships to "others" involved in an asymptomatic testing program at a Scottish university. We show that participants engaged with testing as a relational technology, through which they navigated multiple overlapping responsibilities to kin, colleagues, flatmates, strangers, and to more diffuse publics. We argue that the success of testing as a technique of governance depends not only on the production of disciplined selves, but also on the program's capacity to align interpersonal and public scales of responsibility.

Keywords: COVID-19; Scotland; diagnosis; pandemic; public health; testing.

MeSH terms

  • Adult
  • Anthropology, Medical*
  • COVID-19 Testing*
  • COVID-19*
  • Female
  • Humans
  • Male
  • Motivation
  • Public Health*
  • SARS-CoV-2
  • Scotland

Grants and funding

This work was supported by UKRI Research[Grant MR/W006243/1], the University of Edinburgh and the DiaDev project funded by the European Research Council (ERC) European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program, grant agreement [71540].