Masking in Pandemic U.S.: Beliefs and Practices of Containment and Connection

This anthropological study explores the beliefs and practices that emerged around masking in the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic. Americans responded to this illness as unique subjects navigating the flux of social and corporeal boundaries, supporting certain beliefs and acting to shape them as compelling realities. Debates over health and safety mandates indicated that responses were fractured with varied subjectivities in play—people lived in different worlds and bodies were central in ...