Everyday Sociology Blog

What the COVID-19 Crisis Means for Work Expectations: A Sociology Student’s Perspective

By Colby King and Jackson Tumlin (sociology student, University of South Carolina Upstate)

I am always working to make my Sociology of Work and Organizations class meaningful to students by, among other things, getting them to connect with people who work in areas they are interested in. In the course this spring, though, as the COVID-19 crisis upended the economy and changed how so many of us do work, I got to see how students were applying course concepts in how they were thinking about work.

In this class we typically cover how work is changing, including the development of the new economy, which Stephen Sweet and Peter Meiksins describe as involving new patterns in work, including things like flexible work arrangements and interactive service work. We study how technological change and flexible work arrangements have made new kinds of work possible. Many of these new jobs are more rewarding for workers. We also see how, even with these new patterns of work, many aspects of the old manufacturing-based economy, which emerged from the Industrial Revolution, remain.

The Challenges of Doing Research while Social Distancing

By Karen Sternheimer

A group of my colleagues have started a support group for qualitative researchers, called “Ethnographers in Exile.” After spending a year securing a field site and getting Institutional Review Board approval to do an ethnography in an emergency room, one colleague found that his research could not go forward under the current circumstances, with no timeline for his project to begin any time soon.

Ethnography involves immersing one’s self in the lived experience of the group that you are studying and being present to observe interactions and ask questions that might come up in the course of our participants’ day-to-day lives. Ethnographers observe the tempo of interactions, what happens when seemingly nothing is happening, and ultimately try and learn what it is like to be a member of a particular group.

Are Social Bubbles a New Form of Segregation?

By Jonathan Wynn

Are we moving from "social distancing" to "social bubbles?" What are the factors and consequences involved in such a move?

Based on the TV show Lost, I used to ask my Introduction to Sociology students (back in the before times) what characteristics they would want their fellow castaways to behold. What kinds of skills would you hope people in your group would have on your beautiful-yet-isolated island?

Race, Class, Work, and Health

By Janis Prince Inniss

Five young men and one woman who look like they’re in their mid-twenties clustered around blue plastic trays and carts. I’ve never seen that sort of cart before, but otherwise it looked like any other day outside of the Walmart I have been going to for the last 19 years. This was bizarre because we are in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic!

I was blown away by how normal everything looked outside the store—but also horrified. None of the five store employees wore gloves or masks, and none was maintaining any physical distance from the other as they chatted. Personally concerning was when one of the young men approached my car—too close for my comfort—to confirm my name for the grocery pick-up order. What about the 6 feet rule we should maintain between ourselves and others, recommended by the CDC?

When Back Stage becomes Front Stage: Goffman’s Dramaturgy in the Age of Teleconferencing

By Karen Sternheimer

Several years ago, I blogged about the age of social media might have blurred Erving Goffman’s “front stage” and “back stage” distinctions. As I teach, attend meetings, and “visit” with family members via teleconferencing, I have been thinking about what actually constitutes “back stage” today.

Erving Goffman wrote in his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life that “back regions are typically out of bounds to members of the audience” (p. 124). That was in 1959, when he could not have foreseen that we would have the technology to share audio and video with hundreds of people at a time from a device that could fit in the palm of our hands.