6/9/22, 10:18 AM Connected by extension - How paying connects old regimes and new isolations - Allegra Lab Germany(https://www.tagesschau.de/wirtschaft/boerse/kontaktloses-bezahlen-103.html) and allegedly even the WHO(https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/03/02/exclusive-dirtybanknotes-may-spreading-coronavirus-world-health/) assumed contactless payment to be more efficacious in slowing the spread. The director-general was arguing to the contrary. Whereas the Guardian(https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/17/myanmar-has-zero-coronaviruscases-claims-leader-suu-kyi) and an international human rights organisation(https://www.hrw.org/news/2020/03/17/myanmar-denials-define-covid-19response) interpreted this as further evidence of the government’s denial of COVID realities, I turn to examining the director-general’s reported remarks from a point of view informed by the anthropology of techniques (see Coupaye and Douny 2009). “ The government was preparing for COVID-19 and those spreading ‘fake news’ would be prosecuted, the director-general was quoted. ” The anthropology of techniques examines techniques as social. Originating in Marcel Mauss’ work, it understands a technique broadly as “an action which is effective and traditional (and you will see that in this it is no different from a magical, religious or symbolic action)” (Mauss 1973: 75, emphasis in original). Calling a technique traditional, Mauss emphasises that techniques are not solely a matter of individual practice. They are learned and necessitate the involvement of several actors, human and other-than-human (compare Leroi-Gourhan 1993: 25– 60). Arguing that efficacy is a quality of techniques, “magical, religious or symbolic” (Mauss 1973: 75), implies that the efficacy of a technique is an open question with various, emic and etic, answers (compare Warnier 2009: 467-8). Jean-Pierre Warnier took the articulation between bodies and persons further, arguing that techniques act upon both subjects and objects (Warnier 2009) as people-asbodies relate to themselves. Techniques, insofar as they involve bodies, bodily enact who somebody is. As hands touch faces, bodies and other matter, techniques make people. While anthropological engagement with techniques and bodies is far broader, the literature referenced allows suspending the assumption that credit cards are objectively better than cash for keeping the virus at bay as merely one emic articulation. Linking subjects and objects, the anthropology of techniques allows us further to bridge the gap between manual action, e.g. handling money, and technology, e.g. credit cards and credit card readers. Why could cash be more efficacious in preventing the spread of COVID-19 than card payment, according to the director-general? Which techniques might have cashiers be in particularly https://allegralaboratory.net/corona-connected-by-extension-how-paying-connects-old-regimes-and-new-isolations/ 6/12