Human Arenas | 2021
Arenas of Crisis
Abstract
Human Arenas has started a special section titled “Arena of Crisis,” which will be published over several issues. In the special section, the authors discuss the relevance of crisis experiences. The articles approach the concept of crisis from four different perspectives. A first set of articles discusses community-related aspects, changes in the perception and usage of social media, and altered ways of relating to each other in times of lockdown and social distancing. The authors question concepts of normalcy that some hope to return to and examine new tensions that govern our daily life in uncertain times. A second set of articles looks at digital technologies. Based on the apparent developments in digital technology during the pandemic and increased relevance of online interaction for some of us, these articles wonder if digital technology saved us from a complete halt of our social life during this pandemic. The authors examine how digital technology has changed our interactions and, with that, our social life in general. A third set of articles focuses on questions of inequality during the pandemic. The authors examine how previously existing forms of discrimination have been elevated during the pandemic and how new forms of inequality have emerged or have come to the fore. As such, the authors in this section focus on intersections of gender, race, age, class in times of crises, and critical perspectives of decolonization. A final set of articles try to understand the consequences of the Covid-19 pandemic for our construction of theory. The authors discuss how our understanding of ourselves, everyday life, and the social bond needs to change and how theorizing and critical practice be brought together can be brought together under changed and changing conditions. Numbers, graphs, and statistics have dominated the news for almost 18 months now. While many of these contributed to transparency and a potentially better understanding of statistics and the spread of the pandemic, numbers tell us little about what happens in local communities on an individual and interpersonal level. O’Connell and Lucić (2020), in their paper on scaffolding children’s learning in a refugee shelter in Germany, try to shed more light on dealing with the pandemic and its consequences when it comes to learning support. The authors point out that the structure of education and housing systems for refugees in Germany generally contributes to more