Epidemics Eroding Public Life: An Analysis on the Covid-19 Pandemic

Year 2021, Volume: 17 Issue: Pandemi Özel Sayısı, 3727 - 3744, 30.04.2021

Adem Bölükbaşı , Elif Kıran

https://doi.org/10.26466/opus.873896

Abstract

Epidemics have several impacts on different dimensions of the social structure. First of all, epidemics bring people to change many routines in their daily life and to rearrange their lives. Discussing the impact of epidemics on social life in the context of COVID-19 will allow us to understand that this process, which seems only a medical process, actually has many social effects. This study focuses on the Covid-19 pandemic as an inducement of the rising individuality of modern man under the light of Sennett’s affirmation regarding the fall of public man. To this end, changes in consumption of goods and spaces, medicalization of daily life, the effect of the experience of lockdown during the pandemic on the self and consequently the disruption of the interaction order were analyzed. During the pandemic, the issue of individuals' retreat into their own private sphere and the growth of private life and private sphere asymmetrically in the face of public sphere and public life were addressed. As a result, the lockdowns experienced during the pandemic negatively affected the social self and the interaction order, accelerating the collapse of the public man which is a process that has been going on for a long time.

Keywords

COVID-19, Pandemic, Public Life, Consumption, Medicalization

Kamusal Yaşamı Aşındıran Salgınlar: Covid-19 Pandemisi Üzerine Bir İnceleme

Abstract

Salgınlar sosyal yapıların farklı boyutları üzerinde pek çok etkiye sahiptir. Salgınlar her şeyden önce insanların gündelik hayatında birçok rutini değiştirmelerini ve hayatın yeniden düzenlenmesini beraberinde getirmektedir. COVID-19 bağlamında salgınların sosyal hayata etkisini tartışmak sadece medikal bir süreç gibi görünen bu sürecin aslında birçok sosyal etkiye sahip olduğunu anlamamızı sağlayacaktır. Bu çalışma Sennett’ın “kamusal insanın çöküşü” tartışması bağlamında Covid-19 pandemisini modern insanı bireyselliğe sürükleyen koşullar açısından ele almaktadır. Bu bağlamda değişen eşyaların ve mekânların tüketim alışkanlıkları, gündelik hayatın medikalleşmesi, pandemi boyunca yaşanan kapatılma deneyiminin benlik üzerindeki etkisi ve bunun sonucunda etkileşim düzeninin bozulması konuları analiz edilmiştir. Bütün bu konu başlıklar pandemi süresince kamusal bir varlık olarak bireylerin içe kapanması, özel hayatın ve özel alanın kamusal alan ve kamusal yaşam karşısında asimetrik bir şekilde büyümesi sorunu ele alınmıştır. Sonuç olarak, pandemi boyunca yaşanan kapatılmalar sosyal benliği ve etkileşim düzenini olumsuz etkilemiş, eskiden beri devam eden bir süreç olan kamusal insanın çöküşünü hızlandırmıştır.

Keywords

COVID-19, Pandemi, Kamusal Yaşam, Tüketim, Medikalleşme

References

• Accenture. (2020a). Covid-19: how will consumers change cpgs?. Retrieved 10 December, 2020 from https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/PDF-134/Accenture-COVID-19-Pulse-Survey-Wave7.pdf#zoom=40
• Accenture. (2020b). How is COVID-19 changing the retail consumer?. Retrieved 03 January, 2021 from https://www.accenture.com/_acnmedia/PDF-130/Accenture-Retail-Research-POV-Wave- Seven.pdf#zoom=40
• Accenture. (2020c). COVID-19 likely to usher in “decade of the home” according to accenture survey research. Retrieved 9 September 2020 from https://www.accenture.com/ca- en/about/newsroom/company-news-release-accenture-covid-consumer-research
• Avcı, M. G. (2013). Toplumsal çözülme ve parçalanma: tüketim, bireyselleşme ve şiddet üreten aile. Sosyologca, 6, 251-256.
• Conrad, P. (1992). Medicalization and social control. Annual Review of Sociology, 18, 209–232.
• Conrad, P. (2005). The shifting engines of medicalization. Journal of Health and Social Behavior, 46, 3–14.
• Conrad, P. (2007). The medicalization of society: on the transformation of human conditions into treatable disorders. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
• Deloitte. (2020). Establishing the road to a global consumer recovery in the era of COVID-19. Retrieved 10 December, 2020 from blakemorgan/2019/12/16/100-stats-on-digital-transformation- andcustomerexperience/#c8a48793bf3e
• Foucault, M. (2008). The birth of biopolitics: lectures at the Collège de France 1978-79. London: Palgrave Macmillan.
• Goffman, E. (1983). The interaction order. American Sociological Review, 48(1), 1-17.
• Ibn Khaldun. (1967). The muqaddimah: an introduction to history. London and Henley: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
• Illich, I. (1976). Medical nemesis: the expropriation of health. New York: Pantheon Books.
• Ipsos. (2020). Covid-19 consumer tracker waves 5-8. Retrieved 03 January, 2021, from https://www.food.gov.uk/sites/default/files/media/document/covid-19-consumer-tracker-report-waves- 5-6-7-and-8_0.pdf
• Kim, R. Y. (2020). The impact of covid-19 on consumers: preparing for digital sales. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 48(3), 212-218.
• Kirk, C. P. and Rifkin, L. S. (2020). I’ll trade you diamonds for toilet paper: consumer reacting, coping and adapting behaviors in the Covid-19 pandemic. Journal of Business Research, 117, 124–131.
• Koivusalo, M. and Mackintosh, M. (2004). Health systems and commercialization: In search of good sense. United Nations Research Institute for Social Development (UNRISD).
• Lefebvre, H. (1991). The production of space. Oxford: Blackwell.
• Maturo, A. (2012). Medicalization: current concept and future directions in a bionic society. Mens sana monographs. 10(1), 122-133.
• Park, R. E. (1924). The concept of social distance as applied to the study of racial attitudes and racial relations. Journal of Applied Sociology, 339-344.
• Pomerance, J., Light, N. and Williams, L. E. (2020). In these uncertain times: fake news amplifies the desires to save and spend in response to COVID-19. Journal of the Association for Consumer Research, 7(1), 1- 47.
• Romania, V. (2020). Interactional anomie? imaging social distance after COVID-19: A Goffmanian perspective. Sociologica, 14(1), 51-66.
• Sennett, R. (2001). The fall of public man. London: Penguin Books.
• Sezgin, D. (2011). Tıbbileştirilen yaşam bireyselleştirilen sağlık. İstanbul: Ayrıntı Yayınları.
• Simmel, G. (1971). “The stranger”, on individuality and social forms. Chicago and London: The University of Chicago Press.
• Szasz, T. (2007). The medicalization of everyday life. New York: Syracuse University Press.
• Türk, E. (2020a). Covid-19 küresel salgını ve yaşlıların salgın deneyimi. In A. Duran ve G. Çatlı Özen (Ed.), Tarih, sosyoloji ve antropoloji bağlamında incelemeler (p. 448-473). İstanbul: Hiper Yayıncılık.
• Türk, E. (2020b). Küresel salgınla (Covid-19) mücadelede bir model: vefa sosyal destek grupları örneği. In M. Özhan & M. Dağ (Ed.), Covid-19 salgınının sosyoekonomik etkileri (p. 131-153). Ankara: Gazi Kitabevi.
• Zola, I. K. (1972). Medicine as an institution of social control. The Sociological Review, 20, 487-504.