By Thad Allen

Our fieldwork does not lend itself to analysis of large scale noncompliance, like the anti-distancing protests that have taken place across the US. However, we have observed several instances of everyday noncompliance, which I will analyze using ritual.

One definition of ritual is:

standardized ceremonies in which expressive, symbolic, mystical, sacred, and nonrational behavior predominates over practical, technical, secular, rational, and scientific behavior, although anthropologists have acknowledged that rational, technical acts may occur as part of ritual behavior. (Katz 1981, 265)

Katz (1981) studies the hospital operating room (OR) as a place of ritual. In the OR, surfaces and objects are divided into categories of “sterile” and “nonsterile,” and the separation of these is key to preventing infection. Katz finds that these categories do not reflect the meanings of “sterile/nonsterile” outside of the OR. Surfaces, objects, and fluids in the OR often change categories in seemingly nonrational ways. For example, a patient’s blood is “nonsterile” while the skin is closed but is effectively “sterile” when the skin is open. The patient’s blood does not become microbe-free after the first cut, but the blood must be designated “sterile” to touch other “sterile” surfaces and tools like the surgeon’s gloves and scalpel without contaminating them. Treating the blood as effectively “sterile” while the patient’s skin is open allows the surgeon to move freely to remove or repair the patient’s organs without switching gloves, gown, and scalpel after each cut. Although OR surfaces realistically exist along a gradient between mostly microbe-free and dangerously contaminated, Katz argues that the ritualized boundaries between fully “sterile” and fully “nonsterile” are necessary because they allow the surgeon the autonomy to operate without constantly worrying about infecting the patient. In the OR the boundaries between safe and unsafe, “sterile” and “nonsterile,” are entrenched medical rituals. In the current pandemic, the rituals around social distancing are still being produced.

Destiny, who is currently working at Subway, recently had an unmasked, belligerent customer who ordered a spinach wrap. Spinach wraps were out of stock because they are expensive and the restaurant did not want them to go bad during the business slowdown. The man became angry and Destiny observed that “he couldn’t believe that I didn’t have what he wanted just because of the coronavirus.” In this case, the individual’s noncompliance with social distancing (forgoing a mask) and his disbelief that a restaurant would “comply” by altering their business practices go hand-in-hand. His personal noncompliance may reflect a more general rejection of social distancing. For this customer, noncompliance itself might be ritualized to create “pro” or “anti” social distancing attitudes that are applied to any action perceived to involve distancing, even “technical, secular, rational” (Katz 1981) decisions like Subway’s choice not to stock spinach wraps.

Although we may like to generalize and say that all noncompliance reflects general disbelief in the premise of social distancing, other observations reveal more complex rituals. Elijah interviewed his friend, who witnessed animosity towards social distancing on Grindr. In one interaction, a man from the app urged the interviewee that it was safe to meet up because they had both been self-isolating for six weeks and could not possibly give each other disease. However, the man admitted to having hooked up with multiple other Grindr users during isolation. The interviewee voiced frustration that others were unwilling to stop hooking up “just for long enough to end a fucking global crisis” and was disappointed to lose yet another socialization outlet because no one wanted to just talk until things calmed down.

This interview differs from Destiny’s customer interaction in that the Grindr user seemed to believe that hooking up legitimately did not break social distancing. His comments centered around how both parties were actively social distancing and therefore could share contact. It seems unlikely that the man was insincere about his self-isolation because he easily admitted to seeing others romantically. Instead, his social distancing seems performative; he had been good, so it was OK for the two of them to break distancing. Here, noncompliance fits within the performance of compliance. Perhaps a ritual distinction could be drawn between romantic or sexual contact and any other type of contact, even though no one would claim that sex is less likely to spread virus than a handshake. 

In another student interview, two romantic partners social-distancing in different households promised their families they would not touch. However, they had sex several times. This interviewee expressed guilt at her noncompliance, unlike the Grindr man. Further interviews would help explore the thought process behind continued romantic/sexual, but these examples show that individuals may be noncompliant through certain types of sociality even when they identify a need for social distancing. The boundaries between different types of sociality may be exaggerated by the practices of “social distancing,” making some worse and some not-so-bad depending on the perceived need for contact rather than infection risk.

The final example I will discuss was an interaction I observed in a liquor store. As I entered the liquor store, a customer was berating the owner (who was ringing her up), claiming that the owner had touched the top of the bottle “where I’m going to drink out of.” The customer also called the owner “ignorant” several times. The owner returned the same insult and claimed that she had not touched “anything.” The customer may have been angry no matter what part of the bottle was touched, but her anger seemed especially focused on the top of the bottle.

This interaction is immediately reminiscent of Katz, where exaggerated boundaries between “sterile” and “nonsterile” feature prominently. For Katz, rituals provide boundaries within which participants have increased autonomy. Wearing a mask, I could move through the liquor store without much restriction. However, when I picked up a bottle to read the price tag, I froze, momentarily unsure if I was allowed to put it down. For a moment, I lost my autonomy to put it back, to choose not to purchase it. Because I had just listened to the bottle-touching argument, I was acutely aware that I did not know where the boundary was between permissible and impermissible touch. In the case of the argument, the top of the bottle served as a makeshift boundary between infectious, malicious ignorance and the more normal breach of distancing that is necessary to purchase a bottle of liquor. However, there is no clear boundary between what the owner could touch and what the customer could touch. Any touching risks arousing the anger of either party. Someone (perhaps the owner) had placed the bottle on the shelf. Other customers may have also touched the bottle. Cash or a card was passed back and forth. Each of these touches could be the site of conflict because, unlike the OR, the boundary between “sterile” or “nonsterile” has not been designated in the liquor store. 

These short but informative observations demonstrate the lack of ritual boundaries between different forms of touching and sociality. This makes it difficult to move with autonomy under social distancing. When distancing is difficult or impossible — in stores, restaurants, romantic and sexual encounters — some forms of contact are more permissible than others. Using a ritual framework, we may be able to better understand and scrutinize the boundaries between “sterile” and “nonsterile” touch, permissible and impermissible sociality.

References Cited

Katz, Pearl. 1981. “Ritual in the Operating Room.” Ethnology 20(4): 335-350.