Site of research: Faculty of Social Sciences, Tampere University
Project director: Academy Professor Pertti Alasuutari
Sponsor: Academy of Finland (2020-2021)
Project description
The proposed project seeks to form a holistic picture of the mechanisms through which covid-19 affects the entire world system and give recommendations about how to prepare for and mitigate the processes that this and future global crises will bring about.
Typically, the cause for global changes can be attributed to innovations such as steam machine or mobile phone, but covid-19 illustrates that a natural catastrophe can also act as a triggering event. Subsequently, for an incident to commence a process of global social change, it has to translate into action in at least one global field, and its significance and form are determined by the ways in which changes in a field affect other fields. By pursuing how and to what extend such a tragic covid19 pandemic could affect world culture, the project would provide fresh insights into global change.