An international workshop on the emergence of risk normality

July 5–8, 2021

The COVID-19 pandemic radically changed the free and liberal social environment we were used to. Imposed social distancing and the need to wear masks, coupled with quarantines, the globalization of the virus, and the realization that there is no place where one may escape its grip, have turned life in 2020 into a strange and somewhat apocalyptic experience.

For many, these strange times are deeply unsettling. With no vaccine thus far, it seems that all policies have converged into one general guideline: We have to learn to live with the virus. We have to adapt our daily routines to a world in which the risk of COVID-19 is omnipresent.

However, the challenges that COVID-19 poses to life in 2020 are not new. In fact, the challenges that COVID-19 poses to life in 2020 merely exemplify those posed by a much greater crisis: climate change. The climate crisis is changing the planet and, more significantly for us, the human habitat.  A changing habitat requires new adaptations: The climate crisis calls for new ways of “living with.” Human beings need to learn to live in a strange and unexpected environment.

What is the meaning of “living with”? In this workshop we wish to focus mostly on how changing perceptions of health and public health—following the COVID-19 and climate change crises—impact our lives, ethics, and sense of normality.

We invite researchers to submit their candidacy as participants in an international workshop. Our objective is to develop personal texts into original publishable papers that can be submitted as a group or individually for academic publication.