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Humanising epidemiology: non-medical investigations into epi/pandemic phenomena

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Pandemic outbreaks as public health crises have the potential to reshape human life, from herpes, and Legionnaires’ disease to HIV and Ebola. Each virus or bacteria has its unique biological properties by which it interacts with and affects populations. Human coronaviruses, for instance, have been known since the 1960s. In the past two decades, however, several new dangerous human coronaviruses have emerged, namely, SARS-CoV in 2002, MERS-CoV in 2012, and currently, SARS-CoV-2 is the cause of the disease known as COVID-19, which has put global public health institutions on high alert. Each pandemic brings its own political, economic, cultural, social and ethical challenges. Although efforts to combat such outbreaks are primarily driven by clinical and medical professionals, the contributions of academics, policymakers and other stakeholders from other arenas, including the humanities, arts and social sciences (HASS), should not be overlooked.

Against this backdrop, this research Collection aims to examine the role and contributions of the HASS disciplines, as well as interdisciplinary efforts, in shaping the global response to public health crises. To this end, this Collection intends to bring together a range of perspectives, empirical and theoretical, qualitative and quantitative, which draw on methods and approaches from, among other areas: cultural studies, new-media arts, history, digital humanities, law, media and communication studies, political sciences, psychology, sociology, social policy, science and technology studies.

We welcome articles exploring topics including, but not limited to, the following key themes:

  • The role of virtual societies/environments in reinforcing the conceptual principles of digital citizenship and other related social alternatives, by which the effects of quarantining and its social and mental consequences can be mitigated;
  • The cultural, political, and ethical dimensions of telemedicine and the role of sociology of artificial intelligence and social robotics to develop their potential applications to secure efficient healthcare systems within the context of today's digital revolution;
  • Social, cultural, and ethical trends in biopolitics and their effects on epi/pandemic responses;
  • Cultural, ethical, and aesthetic potential of enhanced technologies to be presented to laypeople via bio or digital media;
  • Human, viral, and artificial intelligence; theoretical and empirical approaches towards convergent interpretations of virality within the context of contemporary cyberculture;
  • Historical, philosophical or social inquiries into how pandemics emerge and transform societies and their influence on innovation and technology;
  • Unfolding pandemic phenomena as social drama: the ways societies respond to a contagious disease at different times, the various challenges they face, how they deal with them, and how economic and cultural dimensions may have a lasting effect;
  • Social, psychological and economic consequences of the complete or near-complete institutional and societal lockdown; policies to address such consequences and strategies for non-pharmaceutical public health interventions;
  • Diverse human responses to pandemics, relating to religion, race, ethnicity, class, or gender identity;
  • Approaches to highlight the dynamic role of medical humanities to improve integrative medical understanding and fuel social cohesion and psychological stability when direct/pure medical interventions are not enough to support the public;
  • The influence of individuals' specific choices and organisational routines on the relationship between transmissibility and pathogenicity of viruses as well as the regional and historical variability of such influences due to social, cultural and ethical values.
  • Scholarly contributions that address the above areas but with a focus on COVID-19, directly or indirectly, are particularly welcomed.

Interdisciplinary perspectives are welcomed, whether between HASS disciplines, or at the interface between HASS scholarship and the physical and clinical sciences, or engineering, mathematics, computer science.

While purely clinical and medical studies are not in scope, contributions that draw on contributions from areas like medical anthropology, telemedicine, bio philosophy, integrative medicine, global public health, social medicine, and digital medicine, will be considered.

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 3. 

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