Sociology Professor Jack Fong edits new book, Reconfiguring: Global Societies in the Pre-Vaccination Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic

In his newly edited book titled "Reconfiguring Global Societies in the Pre-Vaccination Phase of the COVID-19 Pandemic," Jack Fong and contributing scholars examine lived experiences of the COVID-19 pandemic in communities and societies around the world before the arrival of vaccines. This collection presents analyses of scholars from eight countries, all of whom were engaged in the unfolding crisis of social forces across the world. 

This timely volume conveys valuable insights about how public officials, the state, healthcare workers, and, ultimately, citizens responded to consequences of the pandemic upon not only the body but also social relations in community, city, and society. The contributing scholars document how state apparatuses, urban configurations, places of employment, legal structures, and ways of life responded to crisis-altered social conditions during the pandemic. The book investigates what societies experiencing crisis around the world reveal about the state’s efficacy and inefficacy in fulfilling its social contract for its citizens, especially on unresolved issues related to social relations based on politics, race, ethnicity, gender, and crime. 

This collection brings together a cross section of scholars experiencing the same temporal moment of crisis together, watching and observing how the pandemic of their age uncoiled itself into the fabric of community, onto the institutions and bureaucracies of society, and into the most intimate confines of the home.