COVID-19: Surviving a Pandemic provides critical insights into survival strategies employed by communities and individuals around the world during the pandemic.
A central question since this pandemic began has been how to survive it. That question has applied not just to staying alive, but also to staying healthy, both physically and mentally. Survival is certainly key, but surviving, and what that means, is also critical. The scholarship included in this volume will take a closer look at what it means to survive by addressing such issues as the importance of ethnicity in vaccine uptake, the gendered and racialized impacts of the pandemic, the impact on those with disabilities, questions of food security, and what it means to grieve.
Drawing on the expertise of scholars from around the world, the work presented here represents a remarkable diversity and quality of impassioned scholarship on the impact of COVID-19 and is a timely and critical advance in knowledge related to the pandemic.
1. Introduction
J. Michael Ryan
2. Surviving a Pandemic
J. Michael Ryan
3. Towards a Sociology of Catastrophe: The case of COVID-19
Bryan S. Turner
4. This Is What I Grieve Now
Deborah J. Cohan
5. Carceral Archipelago and Gulag of Grief: Hart Island
Rebecca Scott Bray
6. Pandemic Eugenics: The Delta Variant, Child Mortality, and the New Racism
Nazneen Khan
7. Food Insecurity in the United States of America: A Comparison Between the Great Recession and the COVID-19 Pandemic
Anne Mook and Emily Swanson
8. Coping with COVID-19 in Lebanon: A Social Psychological Perspective
Rusi Jaspal, Moubadda Assi and Ismael Maatouk
9. Disclosing One’s HIV Status During Indonesia’s COVID-19 Pandemic: Challenges Faced by Mothers
Najmah, Kusnan, Tom Graham Davies, and Sharyn Graham Davies
10. Managing COVID-19 (and Gender): An Analysis of US News Coverage on Reported Menstrual Disruptions and Vaccines
Mari A. DeWees and Amy C. Miller
11. The Significance of Ethnicity in Vaccination Uptake: Social Psychological Aspects
Rusi Jaspal and Glynis M. Breakwell
12. "Protecting Our Most Vulnerable": Vaccination Targets, Situated Knowledges, and the Needs of People With Disabilities During New Zealand's COVID-19 Lockdown
Susanna Trnka and Luca Muir
13. Vaccines: Are We Really All in This Together?
J. Michael Ryan and Serena Nanda
Biography
J. Michael Ryan is an award-winning teacher who has held academic positions at top-ranked universities across five continents. He is currently Associate Professor of Sociology at Nazarbayev University (Kazakhstan) and has previously held academic positions in Egypt, Portugal, Ecuador, and the USA. Before returning to academia, Dr. Ryan worked as a research methodologist at the National Center for Health Statistics (which is part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention) in Washington, DC where he led multiple projects aimed at improving national statistical survey methodology. He is the author (with Serena Nanda) of COVID-19: Social Inequalities and Human Possibilities (Routledge 2022) and (co-)editor of more than 15 volumes including COVID-19: Global Pandemic, Societal Responses, Ideological Solutions (Routledge 2021), COVID-19: Consequences and Cultural Adaptations (Routledge 2021), and Core Concepts in Sociology (Wiley 2019). He is also the founding editor of Routledge’s The COVID-19 Pandemic Series.
'At the forefront of social science knowledge about the COVID-19 pandemic is J. Michael Ryan’s The COVID-19 Pandemic Series. The latest addition, "Surviving a Pandemic," is no exception. This volume takes an in-depth look at how communities and individuals survived the virus. With rich data outlining gendered and racialized impacts, the book gives a detailed account exploring food security, grieving and vaccine uptake, all the while being sensitive to the various impacts on geographically and demographically diverse populations. This book is a must read for anyone wanting to inform themselves about how to survive a pandemic.'
Sharyn Davies, Associate Professor, Monash University, Australia
'This book provides a compelling account of the disruptions occurring globally during the following the COVID-19 pandemic. Using diverse examples across diverse settings, the book illustrates how social processes are at the forefront of responses to disease, such that pre-existing inequalities become exacerbated. It provides a clear demonstration of the analytical power of the social sciences to disentangle the complexities of medicine, science, and society. It is vital reading for practitioners and scholars in public health and health sciences, or anyone who seeks to deepen their knowledge about the social inequities that emerged, or became more visible, as a result of the pandemic.'
Karen Willis, Professor of Public Health, Victoria University, Australia
