‘Corona is Over’: Temporalities and Material Afterlives of the Covid-19 Pandemic in Kenya.

Publication date: Jul 31, 2026

After what most Kenyans experienced as the “end of Covid” in 2021-22, material remains of anti-epidemic measures, biological traces such as long covid, and memories of deaths persisted. While infection itself left few visible material traces, paraphernalia of its control – masks, tests, handwashing stations, and routines – proved more durable, although often losing or changing their function and meaning. This paper examines Covid-19 residues in western Kenya, their state and use, the meanings people assign, and how they disappear or sediment among leftovers of other epidemics, shaping future pathways unpredictably. We reflect on the afterlives of epidemics in Kenya and elsewhere.

Semantics

Original Article