Toward a Historical Sociology of COVID-19: Some Research Agendas

Sung Hee Ru, Binghamton University, State University of New York (SUNY)

Encountering the unprecedented social crisis of COVID-19, an increasing number of sociologists are calling for historical sociology to engage empirically with the dynamics of the COVID-19 crisis. I present the “path dependence method” and the “biopolitical approach” to interpret social life during the COVID-19 pandemic. By using the path dependence method, I show how the personal, social, and national problems created by the COVID-19 crisis initiate a new path and furthermore how this newly created path is justified in a society. A biopolitical approach leads us to raise intriguing questions relating to the COVID-19 crisis, like how individuals’ actions are linked to the governance of the state and are reborn as a docile body for state governance, and, in reality, what social problems these individuals have generated during the COVID-19 crisis. The overall aim of this research is to disclose effectiveness of historical sociology, to encourage researchers to use historical sociology, and to argue that linking historical-sociological knowledge to the COVID-19 crisis would be a positive step for an in-depth COVID-19 sociology.

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 Presented in Session 188. Pandemics and Society