The rise of coronavirus has brought into view the complex intersections between infectious diseases and social, economic and political life. It has focused our attention on the importance of interactions between microbes, animals, humans, and societies in a swiftly changing global ecological scene.

This event will examine various dimensions of the social science of infectious diseases, with a particular focus on how coronavirus has highlighted fraught animal-human relations, global inequalities, vacuums of trust, and similar social dimensions of the current pandemic and infectious diseases, more generally.

Our panelists will discuss the various insights offered by social sciences in moving through (and hopefully beyond) the current crisis. There will be audience Q&A after the discussion.

Speakers

• Prof Alex Broom – The problem is social not viral (Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney)

• Dr Katie Kenny – Enduring disease(s) and emerging pandemics (Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney)

• Dr Sarah Bernays – Pandemic social science beyond the Global North (Public Health, University of Sydney)

• Prof Assa Doron – Emerging Anthropologies of the animal and the human (Anthropology, Australian National University)

• Prof Ruth Zadoks – OneHealth as a social science endeavor (Science, University of Sydney)

• Scientia Professor Carla Treloar – Contagion and stigma in COVID-19 and beyond (CSRH, University of New South Wales)

Chair

• Dr Nadine Ehlers (Social and Political Sciences, University of Sydney)

Affiliations

This event is a collaboration between the School of Social and Political Sciences, the Marie Bashir Institute and The Australian Sociological Association.

This event is part of the Social Sciences Week Australia series. View our program for more thought-provoking talks in this series.