The project aims at conducting a wide interdisciplinary study from the perspective of Human Sciences on the consequences and the transformations generated by the recent health emergency in some countries of Asia and Africa.
Three disciplinary areas of investigation have been identified: I) Societal implications, with three main topics, i.e. minority, on the consequences of the crisis on minorities, refugees, day labourers , tribal communities, etc.; resilience, the non-institutional initiatives brought about by associations, NGOs, social activists, etc.; sustainability, as a characteristic of the non-institutional interventions put in place, and a medium-term objective for the post-emergency vision. II) Narratives on media: It analyses various cultural products, from videos to blogs, performing arts, body language, etc., aiming at identifying the narratives and (the often repressed or censored) counter-narratives that emerged during the crisis. III) Political issues: It investigates the different interventions with respect to the institutional set-up of each country, and the quality of the processes that have led to the issuing of the measures themselves, in order to get relevant data on the political management of the emergency.
The study will be articulated along two main axes: a) a research within each of the selected countries, and b) a comparative study, with a view to distinguishing between measures, behaviours, processes that are culture-specific and those that suggest similarities. It is expected that the project will mark a significant progress both in relation to the (still scarce) analyses on the current pandemic, and to the theoretical contributions in disciplinary fields such as narratology, applied political sciences, religious studies, minority studies. For the these reasons, and within the limits of its specificity, it may thus represent a reference investigation, that could contribute to further research also in adjoining disciplinary fields.
The proposed research can be considered in many ways a path breaking project. Several elements contribute to shape its innovative nature. (i) THE INTRINSIC NOVELTY AND TIMELINESS OF THE PROJECT. A large number of research groups are currently blooming up (and starting to circulate their activities) with the aim of analyzing processes and dynamics that characterize the global health emergency. Yet teams that specifically work on the social, political and cultural issues produced by the Covid pandemic are still relatively few (see for instance https://ari.nus.edu.sg/coronasurproject/ ; https://www.ufrgs.br/ifch/index.php/en/a-importancia-das-ciencias-humana... ; https://covid19research.ssrc.org/). Our groups has already selected and analyzed several main topics that will be dealt with during the research timeframe, focusing on the three main fields that have been described in the previous section. During the last few months, it has also already gathered relevant data and references directly from the investigation fields, being thus in the position of starting more complex research activities in a very short time. To this regard, it has to be noted that many of the listed contributions (see the dedicated section) explore original themes and/or processes. Our group has also established a significant partnership with the Albert Hirschman Centre on Democracy (Graduate Institute, Geneva, Switzerland), which is one of the centres that globally are most advanced in the study of the political implications and the challenges to democratic processes brought about by the health emergency (https://graduateinstitute.ch/communications/news/democratic-experiences-... ). (ii) THE GEOGRAPHICAL FOCUS OF THE PROJECT. The selected areas of investigation cover a vast yet organic group of countries in Asia and Africa. From Tunisia to Bangladesh, and from Mali to Korea, our team will analyse specific phenomena both at grassroot and institutional level, with a view to developing the research along two main axes: (a) a critical evaluation of events, processes, stakeholders etc., as evidences of societal, political, and cultural changes in a local dimension, and (b) a comparative study between the different regions, with a view to distinguishing between dynamics, tendencies, initiatives, behaviours, that are culture-specific and those that seem to suggest similarities. Such comparative studies in particular represent an absolute innovation in terms of the amplitude of the investigation area and the extreme specialization it implies. (iii) INTEGRATION OF THEORETICAL ANALYSES AND FIELD RESEARCH. Many of the contributors to the project will investigate theoretical issues, building also on their previous research experiences and expertise. A few keywords have been identified so far, which represent strategic reference points not just for the area-specialized studies, but also for the project at large. Among them concepts as `distance', `pureness', `other/otherization', `war', `body communication', `corruption', `democracy', etc. challenge the researchers to conjure up analyses and methodologies that cannot simply build on the existing literature, but need to be fully reviewed and scrutinized in order to capture the many specificities characterizing the current emergency. To this regard, a unifying approach of investigation (and a peculiar characteristic of the present project) will be represented by the use of corpus linguistics with its specific methodologies, resources and tools. The principled collection of vast materials electronically stored and easily retrievable may in fact provide effective results in terms of discourse analysis, semantic enquiry and linguistic connotations. To this articulated theoretical perspective, the proposed research aims to add several medium- and micro-sized field analyses in the different areas of investigation (described in the section "Activities and tasks"). This will enable the research group to collect data and information that will constitute the basis for further analysis and for a comparison with the results of the theoretical studies.
The project is expected to mark a significant progress not only in relation to the (still scarce) analyses on the current pandemic, but also with reference to the theoretical contributions in specific disciplinary fields such as narratology, applied political sciences, religious studies, minority studies. For the above described reasons, and within the limits of its specificity, it may thus represent a reference investigation, that in turn might contribute to further research also in adjoining disciplinary fields, also in partnership with major research institutions worldwide.