Bangkok in the Time of Covid-19: The Consideration of the Covid-19’s Impacts from the Production of Space Perspective

Abstract

This research studies the impacts of the production of space during the COVID-19 pandemic in Bangkok. Based on the adaptation of Henri Lefebvre's notion of the production of space, the research analyzed the interactions of state, private sectors, and people. Research findings showed that varying processes involving the relations between the Thai state, private sectors and general population reproduced Bangkok's urban spaces during the COVID-19 pandemic. In the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the state announced several laws, policies, and regulations governing urban space in a reactive attempt to control the spread of the disease. The adjustment of the legal framework severely altered the production of urban space through the closure of numerous private and public spaces and restrictions on people's mobility. The closed spaces before the pandemic and subsequent legal restrictions comprised the economic relationships between the private sectors and the people. To justify closing urban spaces, the state deployed the rhetoric of security and public health, positing COVID-19 as a threat to national security. Through such rhetoric, the state utilized existing security laws such as emergency decrees and curfews to maintain the closer of urban spaces. In doing so, the state reproduced urban space through securitization and medicalization without clear knowledge about the relations between the virus and space itself. The results of the state's draconian production of urban space created extreme difficulties for the private sector and the everyday lives of the people compared to their lives before the pandemic.