Social Distancing, Safe Spaces and the Demand for Quarantine
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SYMPOSIUM: REFLECTIONS BEFORE, DURING AND BEYOND COVID-19
Social Distancing, Safe Spaces and the Demand for Quarantine Frank Furedi 1
# The Author(s) 2020
Abstract Social distance has been a topic of interest in sociology for more than a century before the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Whereas in the past it referred to the distance between groups in more recent times it signifies the space between individuals. The aspiration for safe space and personal boundaries in recent years indicated that social distancing has acquired an increasingly individuated and privatised form. This article suggests that the demand for safe space can be interpreted as a demand for a quarantine from psychic threats. This pre-existing demand for a quarantine from criticism and pressure has seamlessly meshed with the imperative of social distancing in the COVID-19 era. Keywords Social distance . Safe space . Personal boundary . Fear
As a sociologist I was astonished to discover that so many people have become comfortable with their life in lockdown. When in the course of a zoom conference in May 2020, I tell a colleague in New York that I am going stir crazy and want my life back, she admonishes me for thinking irresponsible thoughts. Another attempts to reassure me that there is much that I can do “to make life more comfortable” during the lock down. One major survey published on the UK in May 2020 indicated that 49% of the respondents agreed with the statement that “there are some aspects of the “lockdown” measures that I’ve enjoyed.”1 Surveys also suggest that millions of people are worried that the lockdown is being eased too rapidly.2 Numerous commentators claim that social distancing is here to stay. These responses to a public health crisis did not emerge out of nowhere. They have a prehistory and what this essay will attempt to show is that what the COVID-19 pandemic has done is to amplify and reinforce a pre-existing cultural orientation towards the spatial dimension of safety.
1 https://www.kcl.ac.uk/policy-institute/assets/getting-used-to-life-underlockdown.pdf 2
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8349223/Coronaphobia-gripsnation-Britons-fear-lockdown-eased-rapidly.html
* Frank Furedi [email protected] 1
The University of Kent, Canterbury CT2 7NY, UK
Social Distance It is useful to recall that the term social distance has its origins in the field of sociology. The first significant sociological contribution to distancing is to be found in Georg Simmel’s seminal essay, “The Stranger” in 1908. Simmel’s essay stimulated the development of the concept of social distance in the field of American urban sociology in the 1920s. Emory Bogardus, founder the Department of Sociology, University of South Carolina developed the social distancing scale, which was mainly used to measure inter-racial relations and different forms of “prejudice”. At this point in time social distance was primarily used to explore the physical and psychical distance between groups. From the standpoint of today, arguably the most interesti
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