Pandemic Society

From SARS to Zika, and Ebola to COVID-19, epidemics and pandemics have become increasingly prevalent in recent years. Each outbreak presents new challenges but the responses are often similar.

This important book explores the dimensions, dynamics and implications of emerging pandemic societies. Drawing on ideas from sociology and science and technology studies, it sheds new light on how pandemics are socially produced and, in turn, shape societies in areas such as governance, work and recreation, science and technology, education, and family life. It offers pointers to the future of pandemic societies, including the expansion of technologies of surveillance and control, as well as the prospects of social renewal created by economic and social disruption.

Alan Petersen is Professor of Sociology at Monash University. He is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in the UK and in Australia. He has written on the sociology of health and medicine, the sociology of risk, the sociology of news media and digital media, science and technology studies and gender studies for more than 30 years.