Social and Political Representations of the COVID-19 Crisis
About this ebook
Social and Political Representations of the COVID-19 Crisis analyzes the varied strategies attempted in different parts of the world to deal with the pandemic, including elimination, mitigation, flattening the curve, and herd immunity, and the ramifications of these approaches. It argues that the different strategies are guided by social representations that can be analyzed on epistemological, emotional, and ethical-moral levels. Drawing upon a wide range of thinkers, the book also investigates the key role of psychological defense mechanisms, including different ways of denying the seriousness of the pandemic and different paranoid responses to pain and frustration, such as scapegoating and conspiracy theories.
This timely book analyzes the transformations in the social fabric brought about by the pandemic and the questions it poses for the future of our societies. It will therefore be of great interest to students and researchers in the humanities, social sciences, and public health, as well as the general reader.
About the author
Daniel Feierstein is Director of the Centre of Genocide Studies at the National University of Tres de Febrero, Argentina, and Director of the Observatory of State Crimes at the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is also Senior Researcher at the National Research Council of Argentina (CONICET). His work primarily focuses on genocidal social practices and has been crucial in the increased recognition of the Argentine military junta’s crimes as genocide. He is a previous president of the International Association of Genocide Scholars and has acted as a judge on the Permanent People’s Tribunal in Sri Lanka, Mexico, Myanmar, and Colombia. He is the author of several books, including Genocide as a Social Practice: Reorganizing Society under the Nazis and Argentina’s Military Juntas (Rutgers University Press, 2014) and Memorias y Representaciones: Sobre la elaboracion del genocidio I (FCE, 2012). During the COVID- 19 pandemic, Feierstein participated in numerous national and provincial advisory councils in Argentina assessing the social aspects of the crisis.
