Bodies of the pandemic in Peru

Reflections from Merleau-Ponty’s phenomenology

Abstract

This article analyses the experience of the pandemic in Peru, taking into account Merleau-Ponty’s description of expression, which generates, in the French philosopher, an indirect reflection about social and historic contingency. The text is divided in three parts. The first part discusses three moments of the Peruvian confinement, which give rise to three interpretations of social experience and of our own history. The second part presents the pre-reflective analysis of language in Merleau-Ponty and the synergy between instituted and instituting language as a key to interpret historical phenomena. Finally, we consider adopting the view on contingency that flows from Merleau-Ponty’s conception of the institution, in order to glimpse possible historical findings to which this social situation requires us to respond.