The dramaturgy of a health emergency: women’s lived experiences of the zika epidemic in Brazil

Abstract The official calendar of a health emergency has a direct impact on affected populations, particularly at the times of beginning, peak, end, and after the end. According to the World Health Organization, the zika virus epidemic was a public health emergency between February and November 2016. The disease is now classified as an endemic arbovirus in several countries in the Global South. In this article, we analyze the chronology of the epidemic for three women affected by zika in Alagoas, Brazil, who became pregnant at the beginning of the health emergency and whose children died between two and four years after the end of the epidemic. Our focus on the lived experience of these three women complexifies the linear dramaturgy of time in health emergencies. We aim to demonstrate how the health emergency calendar is an artifact that shapes political subjectivities, but also how it simplifies the lived experience of affected women, particularly in the times after the end.