Living with a global pandemic. A study of people's worries in relation to Covid-19 in Sweden

Covid-19 as a health crisis has affected all spheres of private and public life, both nationally and internationally, locally and globally.This article aims to contribute knowledge about people's levels of worry during the pandemic's first phase in Sweden.Worry is examined in relation to sociodemographic background, social capital, and judgements concerning potential threats and the national measures implemented.The theoretical framework utilized resides upon concepts and theories of worry and social capital.The data was collected in Sweden in April and May 2020 through an online survey of experiences of the Covid-19 pandemic.Multiple regression analysis and multiple correspondence analysis revealed that higher levels of worry were closely associated both with the judgement that the national measures implemented were not correct, and with the perception that Covid-19 as an illness comprised a greater threat than its financial and social consequences.These factors were also related to advanced age, chronic illness, and lower levels of social capital.Our findings point to the need for further sociological research - both quantitative and qualitative - concerning the pandemic's various consequences in everyday life.

Covid-19 började som en hälsokris och växte snabbt till en omfattande samhällskris – i det privata och offentliga livet, nationellt och internationellt, lokalt och globalt. Syftet med denna artikel är att bidra med kunskap om människors oro under covid-19-pandemins första fas i Sverige. Oro studeras utifrån sociodemografiska faktorer, socialt kapital samt människors bedömningar av nationella åtgärder och potentiella hot. Studiens teoretiska ramverk utgår från begrepp och teorier om oro och socialt kapital. Data samlades in i Sverige under april–maj 2020 med hjälp av en webbaserad enkät om människors erfarenheter av covid-19-pandemin. Genom multipel regressionsanalys och multipel korrespondensanalys fann vi att graden av oro är nära kopplad till bedömningen av nationella åtgärder som felaktiga, samt till uppfattningen att själva viruset covid-19 är det största hotet (i jämförelse med ekonomiska eller sociala konsekvenser av pandemin). Dessa faktorer var även relaterade till högre ålder, kronisk sjukdom samt lågt socialt kapital. Artikeln pekar på ett behov av mer sociologisk forskning – både kvantitativ och kvalitativ – om pandemins olika konsekvenser i vardagslivet.

#Metoo. A struggle for social recognition and justice

In the article Honneth's theory of social recognition and Frickers' theory of epistemic injustice is used to analyse testimonies of sexual harassment. The study is based on a content analysis of the testimonies about sexual harassment that are included in the 65 Swedish #metoo calls. Those who testified talk about what, with help of Honneth's theory, can be described as a systematic withholding of social recognition. They are denied solidarity and rights through sexualized physical and psychological abuse, which has a negative impact on their basic self-confidence, self-respect, and self-esteem. In practice, the actions of the perpetrators result in both personal suffering for the women who has been subjected to sexual harassment and to the exclusion of them from social contexts. The latter takes place by the women either leaving the context in which they have been subjected to sexual harassment or to their participation in the context being conditional. For example, they must refrain from telling what they have been through or they lack support when they do. In the article, the difficulty of mobilizing support for those who are subjected to sexual harassment is interpreted as an effect of epistemic injustice.

Artikeln analyserar vittnesmål om sexuella trakasserier utifrån Honneths teori om socialt erkännande och Frickers teori om epistemisk orättvisa. Undersökningen baseras på en innehållsanalys av de vittnesmål om sexuella trakasserier som ingår i de 65 svenska #metoo-uppropen. De som vittnat i #metoo-uppropen berättar om vad som med Honneths begrepp kan beskrivas som en systematisk förvägran av socialt erkännande. De nekas solidaritet och rättigheter genom sexuella fysiska och psykiska övergrepp, vilket har en negativ inverkan på deras självförtroende, självaktning och självuppskattning. De förövande männens agerande leder i praktiken till såväl personligt lidande för de kvinnor som utsätts som deras exkludering från sociala sammanhang. Det senare sker genom att kvinnorna antingen lämnar det sammanhang i vilket de utsatts för sexuella trakasserier eller att deras deltagande i sammanhanget villkoras. De måste till exempel avstå från att berätta om vad de utsatts för eller så uteblir omgivningens stöd när de berättar. Svårigheten att mobilisera stöd för dem som blir utsatta för sexuella trakasserier tolkas i artikeln som en effekt av epistemisk orättvisa.

This is an interview with Eva Illouz on her academic life and writings.

In this article, the invention of new forms of desire that target the gendered body in consumer culture is examined through the lens of the visual rhetoric of shop-window mannequins. The article is a result of cross-disciplinary research combining rhetorical and sociological theories and methods. Inspired by nonverbal methods and theories of embodiment, successive modernities and gender, the changing ethos and personae of mannequins from the 1930s until today are decoded. The shop window could be seen as a microcosm of consumer culture and is, therefore, interesting to study over time to unveil its shifting ideals. The empirical data consist of over 1000 pictures of window displays. Questions that are asked in analysing the empirical material are the following: (1) What ethos and personae do the shop-window mannequins nonverbally express? (2) How do the ethos and personae they nonverbally express change during the transformation of modernity? and (3) Are there any differences between the ethos and personae nonverbally expressed by the male and female mannequins, as well as within each gender? In the two first sections, a theoretical understanding of the concepts of ethos and persona as forms of embodiment that emerge through the interaction between the shop-window mannequins and the consumer is developed. In the third section, the empirical technique that has been used to capture the ethos and personae expressed by the shop-window mannequins is treated. In the fourth section, the notion of successive modernities is introduced, as the study aims to observe the transformation of the ethos and personae of male and female shop-window mannequins during the course of modernity. Also a gender perspective is added as the observation shows differences between and within each gender category. In the fifth section, the result of the analysis of the empirical materials is presented.

Current discussions on public trust, as well as on risk communication, have a restricted rationalistic bias in which the cognitive-reflexive aspect of trust is emphasized at the expense of its emotional aspect. This article contributes to a substantive theory of trust by exploring its emotional character. Drawing on recent discussions in science and technology studies, social psychology, and general social theory, it argues that trust is a modality of action that is relational, emotional, asymmetrical, and anticipatory. Hence, trust does not develop through information and the uptake of knowledge but through emotional involvement and sense-making. The implications of this conception of trust for public understandings of science and for risk communication are discussed.