“Masked” and “Gloved” Society Under the Microscope of the Sociology of Everyday Life: A Quick Look

Abstract

The complex of various social consequences of the coronavirus pandemic that broke out in 2020 has become the topic of many publications. In the aggregate “discourse on coronavirus” which is becoming planetary, expert judgments and assessments are supplemented with elements of everyday reflection of millions of people. Changes in employment, education and leisure, the restriction of population mobility flows and reformation of interpersonal and social communications, “social distancing”, wearing personal protective equipment in public places, quarantine measures and self-isolation regimes, the galloping pace of digitalization, etc. — all these and many other “shifts” and “displacements” of social relations do not go unnoticed, they become the subject of heated discussions and, in essence, apply to every person. This article, written in the genre of scientific and publicistic essay, attempts to look at the discussed range of problems through the theoretical and methodological optics of the sociology of everyday life. The conceptual arsenal of microsociology makes it possible to analyze the phenomena of the rapid “restructuring of routines”, as well as modification and transformation of everyday social practices, highlighting and making more explicit the logic of the process of “intensive reassembling” of everyday life which is taking place in front of all mankind under the influence of the coronavirus pandemic.