Cover Art Concept

At the time of this writing, in August 2020, in the thick of the COVID-19 pandemic and amid fears of a second wave, questions of health-care access and global health justice have become painfully urgent as those most vulnerable (women, people of color, and the poor, among others) suffer the dire consequences of continued public divestment and the corporatization of health-care systems around the world. Rather than acting as a so-called great equalizer, the pandemic has exacerbated inequalities along the axes of gender, race, class, nationality, and legal status. In this context, the word triage, visible in this issue's cover art contribution by artist and writer Molly Crabapple, has acquired an increasingly necropolitical meaning that marks who should have access to care and who should be left to die. In contrast, Crabapple's sketch speaks to the right to a life with dignity for those who, once again, are rendered invisible as the public health emergency pushes the migrant crisis to the margins of the news cycle and the political imagination.