Current global developments evoke apocalyptic visions and create multi-dimensional insecurities that even the most stringent safety and security policies seem to be unable to appease. In the face of the most challenging global crisis since the Second World War, Etienne Balibar urges us to confront the “absolute uncertainty of the situation we find ourselves in”, and the moral and political ripples that are yet to unfold. Phenomena that have emerged already are new forms of subjugation and humiliation, which are eroding the last remnants of security, trust and guidance, leaving us ­exposed to the obscure and inhospitable potential of infected minds and bodies. In every corner of the world, people feel powerless against an inescapable shared fate, shrouding humanity in unprecedented passivity and posing fundamental challenges to our concept of freedom.

In this sense, LIMINA examines pertinent questions of an immunised/disinfected society from an interdisciplinary perspective. How does the societal experience of an increasingly intensifying crisis impact the dialectic of freedom and safety? What happens to a community when convivial exchanges, joyous adventures, connection and solidarity are replaced by basic survival and by efforts to achieve and maintain perceived permanent safety and sterility? Which alternative strategies and ways of societal organisation and living can emerge in the ambivalences of this crisis? What will our world look like “post disinfection”?