Table Of ContentCOVID-19
The SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the associated COVID-19 pandemic, is perhaps
the greatest threat to life, and lifestyles, the world has known in more than a
century. The scholarship included here provides critical insights into the ethics and
ideologies, inequalities, and changed social understandings that lie at the heart of
this pandemic. This volume maps out the ways in which the pandemic has impacted
(most often disproportionately) societies, the successes and failures of means used
to combat the virus, and the considerations and future possibilities – both positive
and negative – that lie ahead. While the pandemic has brought humanity together
in some noteworthy ways, it has also laid bare many of the systemic inequalities that
lie at the foundation of our global society. This volume is a significant step toward
better understanding these impacts.
The work presented here represents a remarkable diversity and quality of impassioned
scholarship and is a timely and critical advance in knowledge related to the pandemic.
This volume and its companion, COVID-19: Volume II: Social Consequences and Cultural
Adaptations, are the result of the collaboration of more than 50 of the leading social
scientists from across five continents. The breadth and depth of the scholarship is matched
only by the intellectual and global scope of the contributors themselves. The insights
presented here have much to offer not just to an understanding of the ongoing world
of COVID-19, but also to helping us (re-)build, and better shape, the world beyond.
J. Michael Ryan, PhD, is an assistant professor of sociology at Nazarbayev
University, Kazakhstan. He has previously held academic positions in Portugal,
Egypt, Ecuador, and the United States of America. Before returning to academia,
Dr. Ryan worked as a research methodologist at the National Center for Health
Statistics in Washington, DC. He is the editor of multiple volumes, including Trans
Lives in a Globalizing World: Rights, Identities, and Politics (Routledge 2020), Core
Concepts in Sociology (Wiley 2019), and Gender in the Middle East and North Africa:
Contemporary Issues and Challenges (Lynne-Rienner 2020).
COVID-19
Volume I: Global Pandemic,
Societal Responses, Ideological
Solutions
Edited by J. Michael Ryan
First published 2021
by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2021 selection and editorial matter, J. Michael Ryan; individual chapters,
the contributors
The right of J. Michael Ryan to be identified as the author of the editorial
material, and of the authors for their individual chapters, has been asserted
in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
A catalog record for this book has been requested
ISBN: 978-0-367-69514-9 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-0-367-69515-6 (pbk)
ISBN: 978-1-003-14208-9 (ebk)
Typeset in Bembo
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CONTENTS
List of figures viii
List of tables ix
Preface x
Timeline of COVID-19 xii
Notes on the contributors xxxiii
1 COVID-19: global pandemic, societal responses,
ideological solutions 1
J. Michael Ryan
2 The SARS-CoV-2 virus and the COVID-19 pandemic 9
J. Michael Ryan
PART I
Ethics and ideologies 21
3 McDonaldization in the age of COVID-19 23
George Ritzer
4 Theodicies of the COVID-19 catastrophe 29
Bryan S. Turner
5 Necroethics in the time of COVID-19 and Black
Lives Matter 43
Scott Schaffer
vi Contents
6 Ecology, democracy, and COVID-19: rereading
and radicalizing Karl Polanyi 54
Eren Duzgun
7 Heterotopia in Melanesia: reactions to COVID-19
in Papua New Guinea 68
David Troolin
8 The blessings of COVID-19 for neoliberalism, nationalism,
and neoconservative ideologies 80
J. Michael Ryan
9 The rise of the COVID-19 pandemic and the decline
of global citizenship 94
Atefeh Ramsari
PART II
Exacerbating inequalities 107
10 Inequalities and COVID-19 109
Serena Nanda
11 Spotlighting hidden inequities: post-secondary education
in a pandemic 124
Stacy L. Smith, Adam G. Sanford, and Dinur Blum
12 Business as usual: poverty, education, and economic
life amidst the pandemic 139
Ryan Parsons
13 Inflection points: the intersection of COVID-19, climate
change, and systemic racism 151
Jill Betz Bloom
PART III
Changing social understandings in response to crisis 165
14 Blowing bubbles: COVID-19, New Zealand’s bubble
metaphor, and the limits of households as sites
of responsibility and care 167
Susanna Trnka and Sharyn Graham Davies
Contents vii
15 Making the invisible visible: viral cloud moments
in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic 184
Joseph A. Astorino and Anthony V. Nicola
16 Treating loneliness in the aftermath of a pandemic:
threat or opportunity? 197
Kelly Rhea MacArthur
17 Managing trauma exposure and developing resilience
in the midst of COVID-19 209
Johanna Soet Buzolits, Ann Abbey, Kate Kittredge,
and Ann E. C. Smith
18 The costs of care: a content analysis of female nurses’
media visibility and voices in the United States, China,
and India during the COVID-19 pandemic 221
Mari A. DeWees and Amy C. Miller
19 COVID-19, the pand(m)emic: social media explorations
from the Arab world 234
Noha Fikry, Nada M. Ahmed, Malin E. Almeland-Grøhn,
Laila ElKoussy, Mostafa A. ElSharkawy, Farah Seifeldin,
and Ahmed Ashraf Younis
Index 248
FIGURES
14.1 Scenes From an Animated GIF Created by Wiles and Morris 169
14.2 New Zealanders Exhorted to “Love Your Bubble” by
State-Owned TV 176
TABLES
11.1 American College Health Association 2019 127
18.1 Number of Sample Articles With Nurse Source Quotes by
Publication and Average Word Count for the United States,
China, and India (n = 244) 224
18.2 Sex Composition of Nurse Source Quotes Featured in Sample
Articles by Country (n = 343) 225
18.3 Female Nurses’ Source Quote Counts by Article Frame per
Country (n = 248) 226
