For cosmopolitan, public, and reflexive sociology

• Main Author: SAITO, Hiro
• Format: text
• Language: English
• Published: Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University 2020
• Subjects: Cosmopolitan; reflexive sociology; pandemic; COVID-19; Public Health; Sociology
• Online Access: https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/soss_research/3379; https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/soss_research/article/4636/viewcontent/Reflexive_Sociology_hiro_pv.pdf
• Institution: Singapore Management University

Is sociological theory up to the challenge of understanding and explaining the phenomenon? I think that the kind of sociological theory capable of meeting this challenge has to be cosmopolitan, public, and reflexive. To understand the social and political impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, we need to embrace what Ulrich Bech called "methodological cosmopolitan" to investigate a multitude of networks, mechanisms, and processes through which the pandemic reverberates across national borders. At the same time, this cosmopolitan sociology has to be publicly oriented, addressing head-on the urgent matters of concern among citizens, rather than driven by discipline-specific debates that are sheltered within academic settings.