Pandemics of Modernity

The relatively indifferent attitudes in the first weeks, when the source and spread of the COVID-19 virus were associated with a foreign and distant place (Wuhan) and an other (Asian) identity, gave way to rapidly increasing social anxiety as the danger began to spread rapidly across borders and approach home, and with it media attention. also rose rapidly. These days and later, when danger enters the home, people have had a variety of rational and irrational responses to the risks of COVID-19.
In this case, it can be said that individuals and communities who have different experiences in different places, in the past and now, experience the pandemic in different ways, attribute different meanings to it and show different reactions. While it is necessary and important to understand the physical/biological causes and consequences of the pandemic, it is also necessary and important to understand how people experience it, how and in what ways they make sense of it in their life world. Undoubtedly, this task is a responsibility on the shoulders of social scientists. Collaboration between social scientists and practitioners is vital to understand the key social and cultural characteristics of the local contexts of pandemic-affected areas and to foresee how these will directly impact strategies and practices regarding pandemic response. In order to better control and prepare for pandemics, it is necessary to investigate their social, cultural, economic and political contexts. By focusing on this assignment, this book aims to make a modest contribution to the advancement of our knowledge and understanding of the reality of the pandemic in particular of COVID-19.
Consisting of five very comprehensive and twenty-three chapters, the book is the product of a continuing academic interest in the reality of natural and man-made disasters and offers a multidisciplinary view of pandemics in particular COVID-19. In this respect, the book gives the reader the chance to see how the pandemic phenomenon can be approached from different perspectives. While doing this, the book, which not only brings together experienced academics in the field, but also opens up space for young and talented researchers, sheds a questioning light on the pandemic situations of modernity.