Mackenzie Israel-Trummel’s SSRC Covid-19 rapid-response research grant focused on advocacy on behalf of the incarcerated, who are among those groups most at risk during the pandemic. Here Israel-Trummel reports on the sources of empathy and advocacy for prison inmates through experiments in perspective-taking. She finds that, when people are prompted to imagine themselves or a loved one as a prisoner, empathy and (potentially) political action are more likely to follow.
Starting with SSRC president Alondra Nelson’s reflections on “Society after Pandemic,” this series of essays explores the human, social, political, and ethical dimensions of Covid-19. These pieces call attention to how social research can shed light on the short- and long-term effects of the pandemic and what can be done to improve responses, both now and in the future.
The publication of this series would not be possible if not for the help of the following SSRC staff:
Juni Ahari, communications and editorial assistant.
Cole Edick, program associate, Anxieties of Democracy and Media & Democracy programs.
Carrie Hamilton, program assistant, Social Data Initiative and Media & Democracy program.
Saarah Jappie, program officer, Transregional Collaboratory on the Indian Ocean.
Michelle Lee, program assistant, International Dissertation Research Fellowship.
Line Sidonie Talla Mafotsing, communications and editorial assistant, African Peacebuilding Network and Next Generation Social Sciences in Africa.
Daniella Sarnoff, program director, International Dissertation Research Fellowship.
Catherine Weddig, program assistant, Social Data Initiative and Media & Democracy program.
Themes
Essays
Social Research and Insecurity
Resuming Field Research in Pandemic Times, Redux: A View from Inside a “Research Reactivation” Committee
by Douglas Rogers
In a follow up to his earlier coauthored piece on resuming research during the Covid-19 pandemic, Douglas Rogers describes how Yale University created a process to review and approve research projects through “a researcher-facing, education-focused, peer-reviewed process that is informed by public health guidance.” Avoiding blanket policies restricting or banning research, Rogers explains the steps taken by Yale, and the subcommittee he chaired in particular, to ensure a safe resumption of field research, which can hopefully guide other institutions.
Covid-19 Fieldnotes from Our Grantees
When the Past Becomes Present: A Legacy of Anti-Asian Hate
by Jennifer Lee
Jennifer Lee deploys her research on anti-Asian hate during the pandemic to shed light on the tragic March 2021 mass shooting in Atlanta, and as an entry point into the historical roots of violence toward Asian-Americans. Lee reports on increased violent incidences and the strong sense of threat experienced by Asian Americans. To understand this, she argues that we need to look beyond the rhetoric of the Trump administration that cast blame on Asians for Covid-19 and consider longer-term structural dimensions of racism and dehumanization of non-white Americans.
Covid-19 in East Asia
Disaster Management in Japan during the Covid-19 Pandemic: Were the Lessons Learned from Large-scale Natural Disasters Applied?
by Mampei Hayashi
Sitting on the edge of the Pacific Ocean, Japan is one of the “ring of fire” countries subject to frequent earthquakes and other natural disasters. In this essay, Mampei Hayashi provides a critical examination of the Japanese government’s disaster management policies to address the Covid-19 pandemic, arguing that the government has wavered, switching between policies to suppress the pandemic and policies to stimulate the economy. Hayashi advises use of the Disaster Management Cycle to plan and implement a more coherent set of policies to not only deal with the immediate emergency, but also to develop plans for recovery and mitigation of similar future disasters.
Mediated Crisis
Media Infrastructure Is and Has Always Been a Matter of Life and Death
by Jacqueline Wernimont
Popular discourse over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic has emphasized its “unprecedented” nature, but a deep history of public health crises communication informs how this current crisis is understood and experienced by the US public. Jacqueline Wernimont explains how messaging around life and death at scale have always been mediated by statistics and communication technologies, and explores the consequences of current failures in that mediation.
Covid-19 in East Asia
Japan’s Covid-19 Strategy
by Haruka Sakamoto
Haruka Sakamoto examines Japan’s strategy for dealing with Covid-19, which, unlike the strategies chosen by other nations, has used only limited PCR testing and made little use of IT methods for tracking those who might have encountered infected individuals. Based on her years of experience working for the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor, and Welfare as well as serving as a consultant for the WHO, the Gates Foundation, and the World Bank, she presents an inside view of Japanese policymaking and the legal framework and constraints that have shaped Japanese strategies.
Disaster Studies
Tracing the Virus and Uncovering Innovation in Puerto Rico
by Deepak Lamba-Nieves
In this contribution to the “Covid-19 and the Social Sciences” series, Deepak Lamba-Nieves shares a noteworthy contact tracing case study from the Puerto Rican mountain town of Villalba. While Puerto Rico has received recent attention for both its severe lockdowns and compliance-averse tourists, Lamba-Nieves describes contact tracing protocols developed at the local level that emphasized qualitative outreach as well as quantitative data collection. Though many contact tracing initiatives and policy discussions during the pandemic have focused on digital mechanisms, he suggests that paying attention to small-scale success stories such as this one offers important lessons for future programs.
Disaster Studies
What Kids Can Do: Paying Attention to Children’s Capacities in the Pandemic
by Lori Peek and Alice Fothergill
Lori Peek and Alice Fothergill explore the healing contributions young people can make following major disasters. Based on over a decade of research, the authors reflect on the needs of children to regain a sense of control when faced with feelings of powerlessness, as well as the very real need to listen to children’s experiences when formulating public policy, risk communications, and disaster response. While the contributions of children should never be viewed as a replacement for effective emergency management, their knowledge, creativity, energy, enthusiasm, and social networks have the power to help themselves as well as others in the recovery process.
Disaster Studies
Praxes of Care: The Politics of “Intravention” in the Age of Covid-19
by Jih-Fei Cheng and Claudia Sofía Garriga-López
Jih-Fei Cheng and Claudia Garriga-López explore the importance of radical care work and the activism of queer and trans people of color in the context of the Covid-19 pandemic. Emphasizing the approach of “intravention,” or the pro-health and care actions of communities themselves the most at risk, Garriga-López and Cheng shed light on the deep community health work of protest, often underemphasized in discourse and the lauding of mutual aid efforts. They affirm the need for a broad movement to achieve liberation from institutional and socially sanctioned violence and show the need for radical and inclusive coalition-building to promote community health.
Disaster Studies
Covid-19 and the Politics of Care
by Danya Glabau
Danya Glabau examines the consequences of school closures for families, drawing out how two older and interlinked crises of the family are exacerbated by the pandemic: the crisis of the privatization of the family and the crisis of patriarchy within it. By looking at schools, daycare, and families as integral and integrated parts of the social safety net in the United States, Glabau argues that under pandemic circumstances (as with many disasters) families are largely expected to take care of themselves, relying on their own highly strained resources. Reflecting a larger pattern, women are frequently expected to take on the majority of added caretaking roles, labor that remains underfunded and invisible.