20 Seconds and a Sacrifice of Soap: Ritual in the Time of COVID-19

20 Seconds and a recommended 20 seconds? With this Sacrifice of Soap: comparison in mind, I realised how handwashing had become a ritual, a Ritual in the time of way to police the boarders between hygienic and contagious that had COVID-19 been drawn between my clean house, By Andrew Barwick and the unknown but dangerous outside. To understand the role that As I stood at my wash basin in April of handwashing played in the 2020, scrubbing my hands and singing thinking of many people during the ‘Happy Birthday’ to myself, which lockdown, we must first understand had now become my practice as soon the anthropological concepts of as I enter my house, I looked down ritual and sacrifice. There is a long at my hands and the soap and water anthropological tradition of ritual running over them reminded me of a and religious thinking. One of the similar image, seen in paintings: that earliest proponents of this tradition, of blood being sprinkled over the altar Emile Durkheim, set up the key mode at the Jewish temple, as described of understanding that influenced in the Biblical book of Leviticus much anthropological thought, (Lev. 16:19 [NIV]). The connection including my own theorising about is, perhaps, not as morbid, nor as handwashing. What Durkheim farfetched, as it would first appear. I calls ‘the distinctive trait of religious was not thinking of death, but rather thought’ is ‘the division of the world of purification; about the cleansing into two domains’, which Durkheim properties of sacrificial blood, the terms ‘profane and sacred’, and the Jewish example being the most classification of all things into one of familiar to me. The more I thought these domains (Durkheim 2005: 34). about this connection, the more I These two domains exist, according to was able to answer the questions Durkheim, in ‘absolute heterogeneity’ that the ever-present Anthropologist (ibid.: 36), meaning that everything within me had been asking. What is either sacred or profane, nothing place did handwashing, by this point can be both sacred and profane and, a mainstay of attempts to control the in theory, never the twain shall meet. virus, have in my mind? What was its In this way, the categories of sacred function? And why did I feel stressed and profane function as ontologies, if I didn’t wash my hands for the full or modes of being in the world, 2 ANDREW BARWICK ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS when attached to an object. One can 171), a symbolic act that allows one say of an object, person or thing: to pass through the barrier that sep- “that is sacred”. As soon as these arates profane and sacred and to ontologies become established and change one’s ontology. One such sym- these concepts become represented bolic act is the Jewish sacrifice that we in the material world, however, there are taking as an exemplar. Sacrifice is now a danger of the two categories can be seen as ‘the most important act coming into contact. Indeed, as soon of the Jewish religion’ (Douglas 1966: as an object is defined as sacred, it 61), precisely because it was used to must be in opposition to that which maintain the boundaries of the sacred is profane: the non-sacred world and profane, in particular the sacri- around it. Mary Douglas explores fices for atonement of sin. The most this problem in her book Purity and important of these, the day of atone- Danger (1966), where, speaking of ment ritual (Lev. 16 [NIV]), was used sacred objects, they say ‘it is their to remove any of the profanity of Is- nature always to be in danger of rael from the Altar (Lev.16:19 [NIV]) losing their distinctive and necessary and from the whole nation of Israel character’, in other words, their (Lev. 16:30 [NIV]) and thus change sacredness (ibid.: 27). As a result, ‘the the ontology of the nation, from one sacred needs to be continually hedged of profanity to one of sacredness. In in with prohibitions’ (ibid.: 27), and both of these instances, blood is used these prohibitions and protections as a means of cleansing; this is the take the form of restrictions and sacrificial element of the ritual. The rituals. In our Israelite example, their sacrificial ritual involves the usage deity was the epitome of purity (Lev. of something of symbolic impor- 19:2 [NIV]) and the tabernacle and tance for cleansing, in this case blood, later temple was their dwelling place which takes on the profanity from (Exod. 25:8 [NIV]). As a result, ‘rules the profane object or person and is of pollution and purity also drew then destroyed or discarded with the strict boundaries around the altar’ profanity, leaving the subject of the (Barton & Muddiman 2001: 94). ritual in a state of sacredness. In this way, the blood serves an ‘apotropaic The problem then follows of how function’ (Barton & Muddiman 2001: to change the ontology of a specific 96), that is, the expenditure of blood object or person, or, in other words, serves to ward off danger through the how to make a profane thing sacred. removal of the profane. Thus, the day What is required here is what Doug- of atonement ritual can be seen as an las calls a ‘rite of purification’ (1966: archetypal ritual, governed by exten ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS ANDREW BARWICK 3 sive regulations detailed in Leviticus repeated, became one of the main and and involving an element of sacrificial most widespread “rules” of the lock- cleansing. Using this example and an- down era. Social media and the news thropological theory, we have estab- were full of different recommenda- lished an understanding of rituals and tions of handwashing songs, such sacrifice within a system of religious as Toto’s ‘Africa’, and Lizzo’s ‘Truth thought that divides the world into Hurts,’ from the Daily Mail (Kekatos sacred and profane . & Brantley 2020), or ‘Happy Birth- day’ sung twice (NHS 2020). We were But what has this got to do with wash- told to wash our hands after “being in ing hands? Handwashing, while far a public place” (which at that point removed in most people’s mind from effectively meant going outside) and religious sacrifices, have many of the “before touching [our] eyes, nose, same ritualistic elements that have or mouth” (CDC, 2020). As a result, only strengthened in recent times, as I, and many others, became strict in it too has become a method to ward our practice. When outside, we would off existential danger from an unseen, not touch our face and, as soon as we yet very real and present threat. First- entered the house, we would wash ly, I will explain some of my context our hands. What stood out to me is in writing this, and the meaning that the way this advice was taken by the handwashing has taken on during people around me and how strongly the COVID-19 lockdown. I will then it impacted me, not just in terms of compare it to the Jewish sacrifice, my routine, but in terms of the way which I admit is an extreme but effec- I understood myself and my body. tive example of a religious rite, to see While outside I considered myself to how handwashing can be understood be both in danger and dangerous, at as a symbolic act to shed light on reli- risk of exposure to the virus and at gious thinking during the lockdown. risk of exposing others. As soon as I was inside and had washed my hands, One of the earliest pieces of advice giv- these thoughts disappeared, and I felt en by the UK government, the NHS, able to touch my face without any and the CDC during the COVID-19 fear. But why? A part of my brain un- outbreak was ‘Wash your hands often derstood that a 20 second handwash with soap and water for at least 20 did not serve as a guarantee of safety, seconds’ (CDC 2020), by all accounts as the virus could still be on my hands perfectly good advice to help reduce despite washing, further up my arms, the spread of the Coronavirus. This or even on my clothes. In addition, 20 piece of advice, because of its clarity seconds was not some ‘perfect’ num- and the frequency with which it was ber. There are all sorts of handwashing 4 ANDREW BARWICK ETHNOGRAPHIC ENCOUNTERS variables such as amount of soap, heat clean world around it. These includ- of water, and scrubbing technique, all ed physical distancing to ensure that of which could affect the cleanliness I did not come into contact with any of my hands. Despite this, 20 seconds potentially unclean other people, and became the law in my thinking; be- restrictions of contact, for example fore washing my hands, or after wash- not touching my face while I was ing for any less time and I still might outside. Of particular note to me was be unclean, but after 20 seconds, I was the way that I conceived my hands in safe. This was evidenced when I was relation to this ontology of binaries. interrupted before finishing my full The focus of the media and health ad- 20 second wash. I felt unclean until I visory bodies on the hands, through did a full wash again. What I noticed these handwashing campaigns, influ- most strongly was the way that this enced how I thought about them. My danger was located in my hands, far hands functioned as a separate object above any other part of my body.

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