WHAT DOES THE COVID-19 CRISIS REVEAL ABOUT INTERDISCIPLINARITY IN SOCIAL SCIENCES?

Abstract

When the first instances of the SARS-CoV-2 virus were reported in late 2019 and early 2020, there were few people who would have imagined the magnitude of the pandemic that we have experienced up to now.

News of the virus seemed contained mostly to the epidemiological community and very few social scientists, especially those outside of health research, were raising much of an eyebrow. It was at that time that IRS editorial board decided to launch a Call for papers to stimulate a debate about the COVID-19 pandemic – the socially constructed classification of the epidemiological spread of the virus – with the aim to develop analyses within a pluralistic research community in social sciences.