Social consequences of the covid-19 pandemic in the context of societal transformation in Ukraine
According to the materials of scientific report at the meeting of the Presidium of the NAS of Ukraine, April 14, 2021
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/visn2021.05.033Keywords:
COVID-19 pandemic, coronavirus crisis, sociology of pandemic, biopolitics, quarantine restrictions, social transformationAbstract
The COVID-19 pandemic in its global and distant consequences is making changes in various spheres of social reality, particularly through the transformation of social communication, the changes in social stratification, social-psychological attitudes and in forming the new rules of socio-biological security. The article presents sociological approaches to the social issues of COVID-19 based on the overview of intermediate results of the research project by the Institute of Sociology of the NAS of Ukraine. It is argued that there is the need for the sociology of pandemic as an actual direction in the framework of contemporary epidemiological research. The challenges and possibilities of new social experience in Ukraine are characterized in four social dimensions, namely: social-structural, social-political, social-psychological and social-cultural. Actual aspects of biopolitics, the issues of social and psychological risks of the pandemic are examined. The peculiarities of the coronavirus crisis in Ukraine are articulated. They are due to the combination of the global pandemic and complex challenges of Ukraine’s social transformation which is aggravated with humanitarian consequences of the occupation of the Crimea by Russia and ongoing military conflict in Donbas. It is argued that the social consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic in Ukraine might manifest themselves in two ways: either as a negative catalyst that exacerbates the issues of incomplete social transformation or as a kind of “leveler”, that is the factor due to which the values of mutual social security and new rules of tolerant coexistence will prevail.
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