Наиль Фархатдинов
Старший научный сотрудник,
Центр фундаментальной социологии,
Национальный исследовательский университет
«Высшая школа экономики»
Адрес: ул. Мясницкая, д. 20,
г. Москва, Российская Федерация 101000
E-mail: nfarkhatdinov@hse.ru

 

The COVID-19 pandemic has informed the sociological agenda for almost two years now. Since the end of 2019 and the beginning of 2020, the mainstream sociological focus has shifted towards the ways pandemic mediates conventional research problems such as globalization and inequality, state and civil society, politics and democracy, etc. Many academic publishers are now busy producing an enormous body of sociological literature reflecting on the social and cultural meanings of COVID-19 and its implications to social life. A quick check on the academic search engines reveals that almost every significant publisher is compiling a volume either written by a single sociologist, or composed of sociological essays and papers by different scholars. It seems that COVID-19 has already become a fruitful field of research that will bring books, papers, and research initiatives in the coming years. At the same time, this situation contradicts a common feeling of many academics. Editors of the already-published special issues and volumes argue that, at the beginning of the pandemic, the voices of scientists and scholars from many disciplines except for sociology’s were loud enough to be taken into consideration by politicians. The feeling that sociology is missing something essential and therefore stays outside of the public debates seems to be quite common.