The New Normal and Covid-19 in Serbia from February to May 2020.

  • Bojan Žikić Department of Ethnology and Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade
  • Mladen Stajić Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade
  • Marko Pišev Institute of Ethnology and Anthropology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Belgrade
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v15i4.1
Keywords:
social and cultural normalcy, critical event, rites of passage, cultural cognition, electronic / internet media

Abstract

The situation caused by the appearance of Covid-19 can be viewed as a critical event: typologically, it is an unprecedented event, which requires and shapes new forms of historical action hitherto unknown in the given context. Critical events serve as strong value and emotional landmarks in the cultural cognition of each social environment, and form the basis for a meaningful determination towards other events. Using material collected primarily from the online versions of electronic and printed media, we consider how the reality they presented is shaped through the news through the statements of politicians and medical doctors in Serbia. We trace how the narrative transformation of socio-cultural reality took place from the time before the of Covid-19 outbreak in our country to the time immediately after the lifting of the state of emergency declared due to that infection. The premise of all that is being done to tackle the infection is not a purpose in itself, but aims to enable a return to the life we were accustomed to before the outbreak of the epidemic. Covid-19 destabilizes our everyday life – a life that consists of work or study, use of free time, socializing etc. Such everyday life is a reference point of "normalcy". Socio-cultural normalcy refers to all that is understood as a normal and undisturbed course of everyday life. The appearance of Covid-19 gave rise to the notion of the "new normal", that is, a course of everyday life that is similar to normal, ordinary life, but with adherence to measures aimed at preventing the spread of infection by the authorities. In the paper we deal with the period that begins just before the outbreak of Covid-19 in our country, and ends with the period after the lifting of the state of emergency, to show the discursively produced picture of social reality in which the concept of the "new normal" serves as a cultural cognitive tool for understanding a situation in which one has to live with Covid-19 in order to one day be able to return to the way of life that existed before it.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Alipio, Mark M. 2020. “2019-nCOV scare: 2019nCOV scare: Situation report, role of healthcare professionals and clinical findings.” International Journal of Multidisciplinary Health Sciences Research 8 (9): 1-6.
Allen, Lori. 2008. “Getting by the Occupation: How Violence Became Normal during the Second Palestinian Intifada.” Cultural Anthropology 23 (3): 453-487, https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1548-1360.2008.00015.x
Bell, Catherine. 1992. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. New York: Oxford University Press.
Bernard-Stoecklin, Sibylle, Rolland P., Silue Y., Mailles A., Campese Ch., Simondon A., Mechain M., Meurice L., Nguyen M., Bassi C., Yamani E., Behillil S., Ismael S., Nguyen D., Malvy D., Lescure F. X., Georges S., Lazarus C., Tabaï A., Stempfelet M., Enouf V., Coignard B., Levy-Bruhl D. Investigation team. 2020. “First cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) in France: surveillance, investigations and control measures, January 2020.” Euro Surveill 25(6): pii=2000094. https://doi.org/10.2807/1560-7917. ES.2020.25.6.2000094
Cohen, Anthony P. 1985. The Symbolic Construction of Community. London: Tavistock.
Csordas, Thomas J. 1990. “Embodiment as a paradigm for anthropology.” Ethos: Journal of Anthropology 18 (1): 5-47. https://doi.org/10.1525/eth.1990.18.1.02a00010
Csordas, Thomas. 2012. “Embodiment: Agency, Sexual Difference, and Illness.” In A companion to the anthropology of the body and embodiment, edited by Frances E. Mascia-Lees, 137-156. Oxford, Mass:Wiley-Blackwell.
Das, Veena. 1996. Critical Events: An Anthropological Perspective on Contemporary India. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Gell, Alfred. 1992. The Anthropology of Time: Cultural Constructions of Temporal Maps and Images. Oxford, UK/ Providence, RI: Berg.
Greene , ChristopherJ. Samuel L. Burleson, James C. Crosby, Matthew A. Heimann, David C. Pigott. 2020. “Coronavirus disease 2019: International public health considerations.” JACEP Open 2020; 1–8. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/emp2, DOI:10.1002/emp2.12040
Howe, Leopold E.A. 1981. “The Social Determination of Knowledge: Maurice Bloch and Balinese Time”. Man (n.s.), No 16, 220–234.
Iacobucci, Gareth. 2020. “Covid-19: UK lockdown is “crucial” to saving lives, say doctors and scientists.” BMJ 368:m1204. doi: 10.1136/bmj.m1204
Kam, Kai-Qian, Chee Fu Yung, Lin Cui, Raymond Lin Tzer Pin, Tze Minn Mak, Matthias Maiwald, Jiahui Li , Chia Yin Chong, Karen Nadua, Natalie Woon Hui Tan, Koh Cheng Thoon. 2020. “A Well Infant with Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) With High Viral Load.” Clinical Infectious Diseases Feb 28; ciaa201. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciaa201.
Kovačević, Ivan. 2001a. Semiologija mita i rituala I. Tradicija. Beograd: Srpski genealoški centar.
Kovačević, Ivan. 2001b. Semiologija mita i rituala II. Savremeno društvo. Beograd: Srpski genealoški centar.
Laidlaw, James, Caroline Humphrey. 1994. The Archetypal Actions of Ritual: A Theory of Ritual Illustrated by the Jain Rite of Worship. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press
Leach, Edmund. 1966. “Ritualization in Man in Relation to Conceptual and Social Development”. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological Sciences 251 (772): 403-408. doi: 10.1098/rstb.1966.0026
Leach, Edmund. 1971. Rethinking Anthropology. London/ New York: The Athlone Press/ University of London Press/ Humanities Press Inc.
Leach, Edmund. 1982. Social Anthropology. Glasgow: Fontana.
Lič, Edmund. 2001. Kultura i komunikacija. Logika povezivanja simbola. Uvod u primenu strukturalističke analize u socijalnoj antropologiji. Beograd: XX vek.
Lichfield, Gideon. 2020. “We’re not going back to normal.“ MIT Technology Review, March 17, https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/03/17/905264/coronavirus-pandemic-social-distancing-18-months/
Milosavljević, Ljubica. 2010а. "Konstrukcija starosti: štampa o domovima za stare (1945-1960)." Etnoantropološki problemi 5 (2): 165 - 183. https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v5i2.8
Milosavljević, Ljubica. 2010b ""Namćori" iz komšiluka: predstavljanje starosti u domaćoj televizijskoj reklami." Etnoantropološki problemi 5 (3): 75 - 97. https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v5i3.4
Milosavljević, Ljubica. 2018. "Sarost kao resurs na primeru socijalnog rada." Antropologija 18 (1): 59-71.
Mur, Sali F, Barbara G. Majerhof. 1984. “Sekularni ritual: forme . značenja. ” Glasnik Etnografskog instituta SANU XXXIII:117-139.
Pišev, Marko, Bojan Žikić, Mladen Stajić. 2020. „Indeks „korona“: simbolička upotreba kovida-19 u javnom govoru Srbije“. Etnoantropološki problemi 15 (3): 795-827. doi
Singer, Merrill. 2004. “The social origins and expressions of illness.” British Medical Bulletin 69, 9–19, https://doi.org/10.1093/bmb/ldh016
Takeuchi, Ichiro. 2020. “COVID-19 first stage in Japan – how we treat ‘Diamond Princess Cruise Ship’ with 3700 passengers?” Acute Medicine & Surgery 7: e506. doi: 10.1002/ams2.506
Turner. Victor. 1969. The Ritual Process. Structure and Anti-Structure. Ithaca, NY: Cornell university Press.
van Gennep, Arnold. 1969. The Rites of Passage. Chicago, Il: University of Chicago Press.
Vučković, Marija. 2014. “Koncept ’loše smrti’“. “ Etnoantropološki problemi 9 (2): 513-537. https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v9i2.12
Xu, Xiao-Wei, Xiao-Xin Wu, Xian-Gao Jiang, Kai-Jin Xu, Ling-Jun Ying, Chun-Lian Ma, Shi-Bo Li, Hua-Ying Wang, Sheng Zhang, Hai-Nv Gao, Ji-Fang Sheng, Hong-Liu Cai, Yun-Qing Qiu, Lan-Juan Li. 2020. “Clinical findings in a group of patients infected with the 2019 novel coronavirus (SARS-Cov-2) outside of Wuhan, China: retrospective case series.” BMJ 368:m606 http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.m606
Zarocostas, John. 2020. “How to fight an infodemic.” Lancet 395 (10225): 676. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30461-X
Žikić, Bojan. 2006. Antropologija AIDS-a. Rizično ponašanje intravenskih korisnika droge. Beograd: Filozofski fakultet i Srpski genealoški centar.
Žikić, Bojan. 2011. “Koliko je "srpski" Srpski film? Konceptualizacija kulturno normalnog i nenormalnog u savremenoj Srbiji”. Etnoantropološki problemi 6 (2): 381-412. https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v7i4.1
Žikić, Bojan. 2012. “Vremenska kontekstualizacija kulturnih predstava o postsocijalizmu, tranziciji i evrointegracijama u Srbiji.” Etnoantropološki problemi 7 (4): 783-805. https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v6i2.6
Žikić, Bojan. 2013. Slike u izlogu: kulturne predstave o Evropskoj uniji kao sredstvo opisivanja paralelne stvarnosti stanju u Srbiji 1991-2011. Beograd: Odeljenje za etnologiju i antropologiju Filozofskog fakulteta i Srpski genealoški centar.
Žikić, Bojan. 2018. Antropologija tela. Beograd: Odeljenje za etnologiju i antropologiju Filozofskog fakulteta i Dosije studio.
Published
2020-12-15
How to Cite
Žikić, Bojan, Mladen Stajić, and Marko Pišev. 2020. “The New Normal and Covid-19 in Serbia from February to May 2020.”. Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology 15 (4), 949–978. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.21301/eap.v15i4.1.
Issue
Vol 15 No 4 (2020): Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology
Section
Scientific Articles

All articles in Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology are published under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License which allows authors and users to copy, distribute, transmit and adapt the article under the same conditions as in the licence.

The CC BY SA license permits non-commercial and commercial re-use of an open access article, as long as the author is properly attributed.

Copyright on any research article published by Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology is retained by the author(s).

Authors grant to the Issues in Ethnology and Anthropology the right to publish the article, to be cited as its original publisher in case of reuse, and to distribute it in all forms and media. Copyright and source must be acknowledged and a link must be made to the article's DOI.

 

Most read articles by the same author(s)

1 2 > >>