Abstract:

As the first pandemic in the 21^st century, SARS has been an ongoing focus for both life sciences and social sciences. It offers a privileged case study to investigate both the long-term social memory of past pandemics as well as the hiatus dividing collective narratives from the individuals’ everyday experiences. Based on a systematic literature review of studies devoted to the social impact of SARS, this paper identifies five major perspectives that have shaped the attempt to theorize SARS in social sciences: a critique on modernity and governmentality, stigmatization and everyday life, the pandemic as an event, the pandemic as a source of individual experiences and memories, and social sciences as action. All of these constitute the whole image of narratives about the pandemic. Taking SARS as a fundamental case, this paper aims to construct a theoretical and experiential framework for future research on pandemic studies.

Key words: SARS, pandemic studies, critique of modernity, everyday experiences, social sciences as action