INHABITING UNCERTAINTY. A MULTIFACETED STUDY ON THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN SOCIAL ATTITUDES AND LIFESTYLES IN PANDEMIC SPACES

The emergency situation caused by COVID-19 has generated profound alterations of individual and collective living, normalizing unprecedented and exceptional lifestyles and social habits. A multidimensional analysis of these alterations, articulated on several epistemological levels, has thus become necessary. Like a detonator, the pandemic has caused different areas of private and public life to explode, leaving nothing untouched: health, work, free time, the forms and rhythms of communication and the emotional/affective sphere have all been affected. In view of these problems, in the initial months of the health emergency (March-June 2020), an exploratory and visual survey was conducted by the Principal Investigator to document the social, economic, and urban paralysis in the urban context of Rome. The field exploration represented a privileged moment of observation and analysis, immediately highlighting the need to deepen and expand the research on the theoretical and empirical levels. In this sense, it was decided to support the sociological investigation with the contribution of other scientific profiles, in order to broaden a point of view that - in front of such varied phenomena - could not remain anchored to a unilateral perspective. To reach these objectives, the project presented here is the outcome of the involvement of 5 different research units: Sapienza-University of Rome, University of Teramo, University of Florence, University of Turin and University of Salento. The specific focus of the project is the analysis of the transformations in the way of inhabiting public and private spaces in the light of health emergencies caused by epidemics and pandemics and to investigate the different effects that these transformations produce in terms of lifestyles, inter-subjective relations, communication, urban structures and bodies. To this end, the constitution of an online Observatory is planned, together with the integrated use of different research methodologies that relate to the following scientific perspectives: sociology (general, legal and communication), economic history, architecture and medicine. As specific outcomes of the research, we expect: - on the epistemological level, to reformulate a critical analysis perspective, able to take up the necessary challenge of complexity and its paradoxes and to embrace the interdependence of knowledge. The themes of risk, social vulnerability and uncertainty will be reconsidered on the basis of the need to hypothesize a reconfiguration of space (physical and digital), of the living experience, of sociality/socialization, in order to formulate new strategies and practices of inhabitation and its culture. - on a practical level, the involvement of institutional actors and civil society, health and social workers, in order to prepare good practices aimed at managing attitudes and behaviors in situations of health and social crisis