Abstract
The objective of this concept paper focuses on the relevance of the analytical potential of Social Sciences for understanding the multiple implications and challenges posed by the COVID-19 contagion–pandemic dyad. This pandemic is generating a global threat with a high number of deaths and infected individuals, triggering enormous pressure on health systems. Most countries have put in place a set of procedures based on social distancing, as well as (preventive) isolation from possible infected and transmitters of the disease. This crisis has profound implications and raises issues for which the contribution of Social Sciences does not seem to be sufficiently mobilised. The contribution of Social Sciences is paramount, in terms of their knowledge and skills, to the knowledge of these problematic realities and to act in an informed way on these crises. Social Sciences are a scientific project focused on interdisciplinarity, theoretical and methodological plurality. This discussion is developed from the systems of relationships between social phenomena in the coordinates of time and place, and in the socio-historical contexts in which they are integrated. A pandemic is a complex phenomenon as it is always a point of articulation between natural and social determinations. The space of the discourse on the COVID-19 pandemic can be understood as the expression of a coalition of discourses, i.e., the interaction of various discourses, combined in re-interpretative modalities of certain realities and social phenomena. The circumstantial coalitions of interests, which shape the different discursive records and actions produced by different agents of distinct social spaces, enable the acknowledgement and legitimation of this pandemic threat and danger, and the promotion of its public management.
Highlights
An epidemic of viral-appearing pneumonia of unknown aetiology emerged in Asia in December2019
Important to promote an interdisciplinary scientific project characterised by the interdependence between the epidemiological, medical and biological knowledge and the knowledge produced by the Social and Human Sciences to better understand an economic, social and health crisis of such a huge scale and to shape the medical and political management of this and future epidemics and pandemics
The methodology used in this article is qualitative, as the article seeks to understand the multiplicity of facets and dimensions that characterise the plural discursive space of social sciences about the COVID-19 contagion-pandemic dyad
Summary
An epidemic of viral-appearing pneumonia of unknown aetiology emerged in Asia in December. The circumstantial coalitions of interests, which shape the different discursive records and actions produced by different agents of different social spaces enable the acknowledgement and legitimation of this pandemic threat and danger, and the promotion of its public management It is, important to promote an interdisciplinary scientific project characterised by the interdependence between the epidemiological, medical and biological knowledge and the knowledge produced by the Social and Human Sciences to better understand an economic, social and health crisis of such a huge scale and to shape the medical and political management of this and future epidemics and pandemics. The article is divided into the following sections: Methods; COVID-19: the contagion–pandemic dyad; multiple implications of the COVID-19 pandemic; and Conclusion
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
