CRISIS AND THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMAGINATION

-Maitrayee Chaudhuri

Locked down amidst the COVID-19 crisis, it is not easy to imagine the future. In a world used to speed and movement, we have all been told to stop in our tracks and freeze. The privileged can retreat to their domestic spaces and maybe record the banality of their daily lives on social media. For those who have no such option, they find themselves sans livelihood, shunned, stranded and hungry.[i]

Sociologist C. Wright Mills in his classic 1959 book, The Sociological Imagination[ii], notes that all of our life chances are shaped by the intersections of our biographies and history. It does not take too much of an effort amidst the ongoing pandemic to recognize that personal trouble is a public issue (Mills 1959). Yet in ‘normal’ times, the sociological imagination is not so easy to practice. Our biographies appear to be our solo stories. We learn early that the onus of our successes rests on us. Not surprisingly, therefore many of us believe that the onus of failure rests on the individual too. 

Sociology would suggest otherwise. While there are various schools of thought within Sociology, most would agree (with some variation in emphasis) that social life is as much about constraint as agency. The idea of restriction in contemporary times, however, flies against both our consciousness and sensibilities. Our freedom appears so obvious. For many others - freedom is elusive, not even an aspiration. Apart from its differential access, the very idea and content of freedom are variedly understood across and within societies. 

Sociology is the study of these various patterns of social interactions and beliefs. At the immediate level, it is the study of the observable, mundane, everyday practices that are the stuff of human life. Much of this we take for granted; as we carry on with our routine activities. For the most part, we are barely aware of either the ‘hidden structures’ of society or if you will, of the ‘backstage.’[iii] The sociological consciousness alerts us to their existence and invites us to wrench open this taken-for-granted reality. It involves a process of ‘seeing through’. Comparing the facades of social structure to facades of houses, Peter Berger in his seminal Invitation to Sociology[iv] writes, that ‘the facades of the houses cannot tell us…the social mysteries’ that lies behind the facades. Often a calamity may suddenly pry open those ‘social mysteries’. 

Those who have experienced wartime bombings … can recollect the startling morning sight of a house hit by a bomb during the night, neatly sliced in half, the facade torn away and the previously hidden interior mercilessly revealed in the daylight. But in most cities that one may normally live in, the facades must be penetrated by one’s own inquisitive intrusions. 

Similarly, there are historical situations in which the facades of society are violently torn apart and all but the most incurious are forced to see that there was a reality behind the facades all along (Berger 1963 emphasis inserted). The pandemic is one such historical situation. 

Our daily, taken for granted routines are no longer routine nor can we take it for granted. Ordinary tasks appear herculean. Buying vegetables is an onerous task. Even if we did not believe milk comes straight from the fridge or supermarket,[v] most of us knew little about supply chains until the Lockdown that disrupted the seamless flow of goods to our neighbourhood shops. 

We can’t just walk to the grocer, go for a haircut, saunter into the classroom, drop into the restaurant. We are not even sure when that would be possible. Jobs.[vi] Future. Plans have all come to a grinding halt. The story gets grimmer by the day. 

Apart from disrupting our lives, COVID-19 has broken open the façade of ‘social structures’. In one fell sweep, we learnt what social anthropology meant by ‘de-familarization’- the rendering of that familiar into the unfamiliar. Even before we in India quite realized the gravity of the situation, we saw incredible visuals of western stores running out of toilet paper. There was panic buying. Police had to be called in at a store in Australia with reports saying a knife was pulled out in an argument over toilet roll between panic buying shoppers.[vii] Commentators observed that western societies were not used to scarcity and shortage. The very prospect of such a possibility suddenly made ‘them’ behave just like ‘us’. The individual did appear constrained. 

Closer home, we could suddenly see how effortlessly the concerns of the poor and marginalized slip out of dominant consciousness. The lockdown impacted different sections in very different ways. The tragic stories of our migrant labour walking back homes, some dying before they could reach home tear open the façade of social structures.[viii] There are reports of rising domestic violence across the globe.[ix] Homes are not necessarily safe havens. 

In the midst of the pandemic, the sociological consciousness seems more pertinent than ever. The facades of the social structure break open (like the bombed homes that Berger describes) and we realize that neither the pandemic nor the lockdown will impact all countries and regions in the same way. The ability to isolate, work from home, homeschool your children, stockpile your shelves, access healthcare, and financially (and psychologically) put your life back together after the pandemic is class, gender, race, age, and geography dependent[x] In this moment of crisis, how would the sociological imagination help understand and ‘see through’ the workings of the linked but different realities? 

∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗∗

Endnotes:

[i] According to a World Bank report - ‘COVID-19 Crisis Through a Migration Lens’ - the magnitude of internal migration is about two-and-a-half times that of international migration. The lockdown in India has impacted the livelihoods of a large proportion of the country’s nearly 40 million internal migrants. Around 50,000-60,000 moved from urban centres to rural areas of origin in the span of a few days. https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/lockdown-in-india-has-impacted-40-million-internal-migrants-world-bank/article31411618.ece

[ii] Mills, C. W. (1959). The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.

[iii] Ervin Goffman's in his his book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life states that the back stage is where ‘the performer can relax; he can drop his front, forgo speaking in his lines, and step out of character’ (Goffman, Erving. (1956), The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. Edinbourgh: Universityo of Edinbourgh).

[iv] Berger, Peter. (1963). Invitation to Sociology: A Humanistic Perspective. Doubleday.

[v] Findings of a research was conducted in mid-2017 on a sample of 1,500 parents and their children living in the UK show that nearly one in five believe milk comes straight from the fridge or supermarket (18 per cent). https://www.farminguk.com/news/survey-shows-a-third-of-british-children-don-t-know-where-milk-comes-from_46824.html accessed May 2nd 2020.

[vi] Workers in four sectors that have experienced the most ‘drastic’ effects of the disease and falling production are: food and accommodation (144 million workers), retail and wholesale (482 million); business services and administration (157 million); and manufacturing (463 million). Together, they add up to 37.5 per cent of global employment and this is where the ‘sharp end’ of the impact of the pandemic is being felt now, the ILO chief added. https://news.un.org/en/story/2020/04/1061322

[vii] https://metro.co.uk/2020/03/04/panic-buyer-pulls-knife-another-shopper-row-toilet-roll-12344873/ accessed on 2nd May 2020.

[viii]https://www.huffpost.com/entry/indian-migrants-coronavirus-walk-lockdown_n_5e843f87c5b65dd0c5d68b49 accessed 2nd May 2020.

[ix] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/06/world/coronavirus-domestic-violence.html. 

[x] https://www.wilpf.org/covid-19-what-has-covid-19-taught-us-about-neoliberalis