Values, Social Structures and Social Interactions: The Consequences and Challenges of the Pandemic

Conventional wisdom holds that people’s moral values take shape during their formative phase of socialization. The moral values that people have internalized by then are thought to be stable for the rest of their lifetime. This continuity does not entirely foreclose momentary adjustments in, for instance, people’s valuation of freedom-vs-security, in response to major challenges and disasters. The Corona pandemic, which is still ongoing at the time of writing, is one of the examples of the most dramatic social crisis since the last several decades. The pandemic is of a global scale, progresses at rapid speed and severely restricts the daily lives of billions of people around the world. This uncertainty opens new territory and raises several imminent research questions: Does the Corona pandemic impact on people’s values? In other words, do people change their values under the imprint of this crisis? If yes, how massive are these changes? What are the implications of the pandemic (and related mobility, communication etc. restrictions) for social connections and interactions among individuals and the existing social structures and institutes? If there are changes, in what direction do they move? And how enduring are these changes - do they revert back, once an end of the crisis is at sight, or does the crisis leave a lasting impact? The panel invites papers which addresses the challenges and implications of the corona-pandemic for the social, economic and political life of communities.