#COVIDTIMES: Social experiments, liminality and the COVID-19 pandemic

Abstract

On the 22nd of March 2020, the Australian government announced Stage 1 restrictions in response to the global coronavirus pandemic (Johnson and Smale, 2020). Since then, numerous nation-wide measures have been implemented in an effort to control the rate of transmission and minimise the pandemic's negative impact on the Australian people and the economy, ranging from lockdowns and stay-at-home orders to border closures and extensive contact tracing systems. As a growing body of research emerges exploring the efficacy and consequences of these strategies, there is an opportunity to reflect on their social and cultural impacts. In this paper I propose two analytical lenses through which to understand these impacts, framing the pandemic firstly as an (unplanned) social experiment which has transformed and illuminated our relationships with digital technologies, and secondly as a liminal moment and a shared set of social experiences.