The Frontline as Performative Frame: An Analysis of the UK COVID Crisis

In this paper, we examine the multiple significations of the “frontline” metaphor in the UK during the first ten months of COVID-19. We argue that the term “frontline” has operated as a performative frame, which has helped to produce the very notion and the materialization of the “COVID-19 frontline” and keyworkers. Showing how the UK government has repeatedly cited this metaphor, we outline the contradictory effects it has generated through an interplay of hyper-visibility and opaqueness. The frontline metaphor has been used to justify the government's injection of massive amounts of public money into the economy, render hyper-visible workers who had previously been invisible, whilst generating a sense of civic responsibility. Simultaneously, however, the metaphor has created a smokescreen for corrupt practices, deflecting attention away from resource-starved health and social care infrastructures and intensifying forms of “everyday bordering” and “everyday racism” that deepen structural injustices in the UK.