Governing Human Lives and Health in Pandemic Times

Matilda Hellman is a sociologist and a research director at the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Helsinki. Her research concerns understandings and articulations of lifestyles, health, and social marginalization. She has focused especially on how governance, policies, and institutions embed and produce views on questions such as drug use, alcohol policy, gambling, and brain-based addiction, and how these affect individuals, groups, and societies.Tom Kettunen is the managing editor of Nordic Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, a social science journal specializing in publishing research on comparative settings within the frameworks of social welfare and political policymaking. With a background in philosophy and gender studies, his academic interests also include diversity in science publishing, publishing ethics, lifestyles, and addictions.Saara Salmivaara is a doctoral candidate in sociology at the University of Helsinki. Her research interests include the role of science in society, as well as styles of reasoning and modes of justification in reactions to contemporary issues regarding health and environment.Janne Stoneham is a master’s student in sociology and co-author to the forthcoming book Addiction in the Brain: Expectations and Ethical Considerations (2022). His research interests lie in the philosophy of science, epistemology, and anti-essentialist ontologies.

• Governance and social control during pandemicsPART I: Communicating a pandemic 1. The role of the Italian press in times of pandemics: Old features in the face of a new risk2. Re-vitalising discourses of solidarity: Governing populations in times of uncertainty and crisis3. Calm chess player or self-aware administrator? How the Finnish and Swedish public health agencies addressed the public during the corona outbreakPART II: Autonomy, rights, and choice 4. A battle over birth: Contestations, lived experiences and the restrictive policy of Finnish birth care in the COVID-19 pandemic​5. Stuck between health-related and socioeconomic risks. Managing the pandemic in IndiaPART III: Political and ideological struggles 6. The Effects of a hegemonising negationist narrative in Brazil7. When counting counts: Politics of quantification and the government of Covid-19 in São PauloPART IV: Framing control policy options 8. The framing of harms to children and youth due to the COVID-19 pandemic in Sweden, Finland and Ontario, Canada in relation to school lockdowns9. Nudge: Behavioural science, normative discourse, and the art of consentPART V: Summary and conclusions 10. Governance in pandemic times: conclusions