IAS Book Launch: Family Life in the Time of COVID

COVID-19 turned the world as we knew it upside down, impacting families around the world in profound ways. Seeking to understand this global experience, Family in the Time of COVID brings together case studies from ten countries that explore how local responses to the pandemic shaped, and were shaped by, understandings and practices of family life. Carried out by an international team during the first year of the pandemic, these in-depth, longitudinal, qualitative investigations examined the impact of the pandemic on families and relationships across diverse contexts and cultures. They looked at how families made sense of complex lockdown laws, how they coped with collective worry about the unknown, managed their finances, fed themselves, and got to grips with online work and schooling to understand better how life had transformed (or not); their everyday joys and struggles in times of great uncertainty.

Each case study follows the same methodology revealing experiences in Argentina, Chile, Pakistan, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Sweden, Taiwan, the United Kingdom and the USA. They show how local government responses were understood and responded to by families, and how different cultures and life circumstances impacted everyday life during the pandemic. Ultimately the analysis gives an international perspective on a global phenomenon that transformed everyday life for millions of people.

Family in the Time of COVID: International Perspectives was edited by Katherine Twamley (Professor of Sociology), Humera Iqbal (Associate Professor, Social and Cultural Psychology) and Charlotte Faircloth (Associate Professor, Social Sciences) and will be published by UCL Press on 31 August 2023. 

For the book launch Ros Edwards (Sociology, Southampton) and Carol Vincent (UCL Institute of Education) will be in discussion.