Review Reports - Narrating Resistant Citizenships through Two Pandemics

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Review for Social Sciences

May 2022

Narrating resistant citizenships through two pandemics

This paper presents a narrative analysis of people with HIV navigating their health and citizenship during the COVID lockdown in the UK. It provides a sophisticated analysis of narrative resistances to inequity and threat to life. The paper is a rare and important document of the pandemic’s complexities and frames them with a helpful and productive mix of social perspectives on politics and subjective experience. The paper makes a strong case for narrative understanding of subjective experiences in political systems. I am sure that the paper will attract a wide readership among scholars in HIV, pandemics and in health studies more generally. The rigor exhibited in the explanation of the methods and analysis is also notable and helps to support the paper’s contentions.

I have a few suggestions for the author(s) that might be helpful.

‘Re-citizening’ This concept emerges as important in the discussion, but it’s meaning was a bit slippery for this reader. Could the meanings of this term be flagged in the introduction so that the reader can see how they are being used later on? I wonder too if a reader not familiar with the link between citizenship and health might be slightly flummoxed. Maybe a couple of examples of how citizenship is used to link policy and lived experience and related issues of rights and identity, might help. Given that the paper does link with other groups facing COVID-related inequity, some examples health citizenship from those domains might also be useful.

Complaint narrative. I really liked this concept as it captures something of the social censure that can attend those who protest political and policy circumstances. Give its significance, could complaint be explained a little more directly in the beginning of the paper and its link with Ahmed made clear. I wonder if there are some resonances for citizenship here too in terms of the ways in which institutions erase one’s right to complain.

Hage’s alter politics. This is another concept that is presented in a slightly telegraphic manner. Could this concept be explained in a line or two early on so that ambiguity is reduced for the reader?

There is mention of 95-95-95 HIV policy on page 6 that probably needs a reference for those who don’t know HIV very well.

Author Response

Thanks so much for these comments. They’re very supportive and have been really useful in our rethinking of aspects of the paper.

I have a few suggestions for the author(s) that might be helpful.

We found this term very hard to introduce in the intro, before any of the findings. The concept of citizenship was in the work from the beginning but the more absolute ideas of de- and re-citizening came up later, when looking at the study materials. We have extended consideration of de- and re-citizening in the findings, clarifying that they work as technologies implementing discourses and that they fit with the more distinct patterns of citizenship changes – mainly losses - that come out of this study than earlier studies.

We also had comments from another reviewer asking for cuts in the Introduction which we have also had to deliver. So we have had to be somewhat selective in developing introductory explications, and have concentrated on the concepts from which we and the study staretd.

I wonder too if a reader not familiar with the link between citizenship and health might be slightly flummoxed. Maybe a couple of examples of how citizenship is used to link policy and lived experience and related issues of rights and identity, might help.

Yes, this needed explication – thank you. We’ve tried to link citizenship and HIV more and (above) have linked citizenship more to discourse as a technology that delivers discourses. Have also given a couple of examples.

Given that the paper does link with other groups facing COVID-related inequity, some examples health citizenship from those domains might also be useful.

We’ve related to long covid especially.

Again, this is something that came up from the data and wasn’t predicted, so it seems a little artificial to reverse-engineer the paper around it. See above – it was also difficult to do without imbalancing the paper towards introductory explication. We have however hopefully expounded it a bit better and related it more clearly to alter- and anti-political resistance (insofar, really, as it is not related to them!)

We have introduced the concepts of anti- and alter-politics early and have related them to Covid and HIV resistances separately. I’ve also removed the extra complication of oppositional politics –which is really a term from Edward Said, though Hage uses it sometimes, and it’s perhaps a bit more descriptive and less telegraphic than ‘anti’ – because it just seems to confuse what’s going on

There is mention of 95-95-95 HIV policy on page 6 that probably needs a reference for those who don’t know HIV very well.

This has now been explained.

Thanks so much for these comments. They’re very supportive and have also been really useful in our rethinking of aspects of the paper

Reviewer 2 Report

Thank you for the opportunity to review this artiucle. I enjoyed very much reading the interesting scholarship and theory the authors have brought to bear on the important connections between life with HIV and life under Covid. I congratulate the authors in their attempt to mobilize multiple complex concepts of resistance, citizenship and narrative and for their commitment to social justice in doing so.

However, there are some problems with the paper as I see it:

1) the dominant discourse of both HIV and Covid against which resistance is articulated is not actually made explicit. What is the Covid dominant discourse? is there (or was there) even one? the battle we witnessed between science, politics, economics, morality and their (possibly fictional) boundaries does not necessarily allow for a dominant discourse in my view. I am not sure therefore what 'resistance to Covid' (mentioned a number of times) consists of here. This needs much more unpacking as it's central to the argument about resistance (which I would keep as singular as the plural is a bit hard to read!).

2) the methods are fine, but there could be more clarity perhaps explaining what seems like two waves of interviews and the difference between them, and better explaining the samples for each wave (in a table perhaps?) - e.g. the author says 'half participants were xxx and half were xxx' but there are either 27 or 19 participants in each wave so half of what? Also, please explain whether people's names are being used or pseudonyms. I am happy to hear participants were paid reasonable rates for contribution, however a rough idea of the amount would be helpful as university rates are not obvious to everyone.

3) there is a slight lack of balance in the text between the space afforded to theory and background and the space afforded to findings. I would encourage the authors to reduce the earlier part of the paper and present more findings. Moreover, I'd be interested to see if there is any movement in the narratives between first and second round of interviews etc

4) there are a few typos and slightly unclear sentences - these can be addressed with a rigorous editing check I am sure (e.g. lines 205-207)

5) the authors sometimes raise rather significant issues/ concepts that they do not fully address. Although I get the 'gist' of what is being discussed, I do so probably because I am another social scientist working on HIV and living in the UK. I doubt some of these issues would be legible to a broader readership. For example, how are majority word people in the UK exposed to covid 'through racism' (line 367)? Or what does it mean that 2022 'voting intentions failed to punish the Government as expected'? (line 66) Punish for what? expected by who? are some of the questions that come to mind. Similarly 'British people consistently say Government mismanages Covid' (line 58) - what is meant here? at what stage of the pandemic? in reference to what? etc

In sum, I think the paper will be of great interest once the arguments are tidied up a bit more. I think currently there are a bit too many 'discourses' moving around and some are being taken for granted as accepted, understood or evidenced. I do not disagree with the perspective laid out by the authors but believe there needs to be more clarity of message.

Author Response

However, there are some problems with the paper as I see it:

the dominant discourse of both HIV and Covid against which resistance is articulated is not actually made explicit. What is the Covid dominant discourse? is there (or was there) even one? the battle we witnessed between science, politics, economics, morality and their (possibly fictional) boundaries does not necessarily allow for a dominant discourse in my view. I am not sure therefore what 'resistance to Covid' (mentioned a number of times) consists of here. This needs much more unpacking as it's central to the argument about resistance (which I would keep as singular as the plural is a bit hard to read!).

We’ve acknowledged the difficulty of saying there’s a dominant discourse but have posited a dominant – though not universal or coherent - government discourse at the beginning of the pandemic (which is what we meant), and have described it. We’ve clarified that ‘Covid resistance’ and ‘HIV resistance’ is resistance to dominant discourses of these phenomena that is directed at increasing social justice (some resistance to dominant discourses is of course regressive or conservative). We have indeed kept resistance in the singular. We’ve also framed citizenships as technologies that deliver discourses (without being equated with them) – which is how they are working in the paper (I haven’t generated a large Foucauldian account of that though).

See above – this perception that the paper was analysing both datasets was a serious confusion arising from my lack of clarity in the method, and we hope we’ve resolved it. To compare the two studies would be another task. Here we’ve just used a few comparative points but have focused on analysing the interview material and follow-up with participants (though follow-up is not explicitly drawn on because this involved very small points)

In terms of reducing theory and background and increasing findings: we’ve done a little of this, removing the theoretical transition between inequalities and citizenships, reducing the comparisions between politico-legal and other citizenships, and also removing the unneeded complexity of using the term ‘oppositional’ rather than simply ‘anti’ politics or resistance (oppositional comes from Said, Hage uses it a little, and I thought it was more descriptive and less telegraphic than ‘anti’, but it muddies the theoretical argument). However there are a number of suggestions here that meant we needed to do more contextual and theoretical exposition; and another reviewer wanted more explication of some concepts; so this was a difficult balancing act.

4) there are a few typos and slightly unclear sentences - these can be addressed with a rigorous editing check I am sure (e.g. lines 205-207)

Thanks! We still may need to do more of this.

For example, how are majority word people in the UK exposed to covid 'through racism' (line 367)?

Clarified (we hope) –thanks.

Or what does it mean that 2022 'voting intentions failed to punish the Government as expected'? (line 66) Punish for what? expected by who? are some of the questions that come to mind. Clarified –we meant, because of the trust falls and opinion poll negative judgements of government competence which were explicated in the prior paragraph.

Similarly 'British people consistently say Government mismanages Covid' (line 58) - what is meant here? at what stage of the pandemic? in reference to what? Etc Now this is located in the early pandemic and in poll responses.

We have tried to introduce clarity and have in particular been explicit about what discourse and what the specific hegemonic discourses involved are. These notes have been really helpful in guiding us in this direction.