WOMEN OF COLOR ADVANCING PEACE, SECURITY, AND CONFLICT TRANSFORMATION
Terror-management and Intersectionality in National Emergencies Cecilia Idika-Kalu Understanding people’s experience of terror management with an intersectionality lens is useful to capture how their class, race and gender connect to shape their unique experience. Terror Management Theory is based on people’s biological predisposition to self-preservation as selfaware beings and defines behavior when faced with existential threats. The foreboding knowledge of mortality, especially under threat, results in anxiety which is at the core of terror-management. The threat to life, livelihood and potential citizenship triggers that need for self-preservation in the Covid-19 pandemic. Because of the multiple threats from the pandemic and related economic crises, people will build culture which helps them minimize terror. This gives them a shared symbolic context that signifies meaning, order, and stability. 1 The idea of terror management posits that, to reduce the potential for anxiety, humans rely on a shared meaning system, which allows them to feel a sense of personal value (i.e., self-esteem).2 Studies in Terror Management Theory have shown that people cope with terror by using pro-social strategies, like reaching out and affirming their family and community relationships.3 Governments and other institutions can support vulnerable communities in their response by advancing pro-social strategies in a “bottomup” approach. This will work with already existing community platforms for engagement that support diverse groups of people. The Covid-19 pandemic was designated a national emergency in accordance with section 1135 of the Social Security Act (SSA) in March 2020. This problem of unprecedented proportions emerged and escalated around the world rapidly. The United States is one of the nations that has borne the brunt of this epidemic the most. The pandemic and the disparate racial impact that has unfolded in the United States has been acknowledged, albeit not exhaustively. An intimate look at the lives of those affected by the management of the pandemic in context will provide better understanding of the intersectionality involved. In navigating the healthcare and immigration systems, race, class and gender overlap to create a fresh dimension of social dilemmas. The experience of many people of color, coping with the threats to their lives and livelihood in this pandemic begs carefully
Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon Solomon, “A Terror Management Theory of Social Behavior: The Psychological Functions of Self-Esteem and Cultural Worldviews,” in Advances in Experimental Social Psychology Vol 24, edited by Mark P. Zanna (Netherlands: Elsevier Inc., 1991), 93-159. 2 Jeff Greenberg, Tom Pyszczynski, Sheldon Solomon, “The Causes and Consequences of the Need for Self-esteem: A Terror Management Theory,” in Public Self and Private Self, edited by R. F. Baumeister (New York: Springer-Verlag, 1986), 189–212. 3 Stanley Gaines Jr Robin Goodwin, and Michelle Willson, “Terror threat perception and its consequences in contemporary Britain,” British Journal of Psychology 96 (2005): 389–406; Leonie Huddy, Nadia Khatib, and Theresa Capelos, “Trends: Reactions to the Terrorist Attacks of September 11, 2001,” Public Opinion Quarterly 66 no. 3 (2002): 418–450; Schuster, M. A., Stein, B. D., Jaycox, L. H., Collins, R. L., Marshall, G. N., Elliott, M. N., et al., “A National Survey of Stress Reactions after the September 11, 2001, Terrorist Attacks,” New England Journal of Medicine 345 (2001): 1507–1512. 1
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