A deep dive into your nagging pandemic questions 

Posted on 4 May, 2020

Well, there’s no doubt about it. The pandemic has turned all of our lives upside down. As individuals and as a community, things are changing quickly and in unexpected ways.

Sitting right beside our personal pandemic worries and anxieties, are hard questions about our lives and our community: How I find peace of mind during a global pandemic? Do we really have to make a choice between public health and the economy? What can we learn from past catastrophes? How are remote working arrangements highlighting gender inequalities?  

To help us explore these questions the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia (ASSA), based here in Canberra has teamed up with local veteran journalists Ginger Gorman and Sue White to launch a brand new national podcast—Seriously Social. 

Launched today, the podcast features two Canberra-based academics as their first guests. The aim of Seriously Social is to use the lens of the social sciences to help us consider how COVID is impacting Australian society—our relationships, human connections and societal structures. 

CEO of the Academy, Dr Chris Hatherly, says the Academy was inspired to launch the podcast because its members realised they could offer insights the Australian public wasn’t getting elsewhere.

“We’re seeing so much news reporting about COVID-19—the latest numbers, or decisions on restrictions or schools—that it’s really hard to get a deeper understanding of how the pandemic is affecting us as a society.

“We’ve launched this podcast, to connect listeners with Australia’s leading experts on those deeper questions. This is where people will find insights from our best thinkers on how COVID-19 is affecting us and how it will change our society.”

So if you listen, what will you get?

The first cab off the rank is a deep dive into what history can teach us about this current pandemic when Ginger chats with Australian National University history professor, Frank Bongiorno. 

Franks says we can get deep insights if we look at how previous pandemics were managed.

“For the first time I think in well over 30 years, I had a look at Thucydides’ famous accounts of Plague of Athens, which occurred during the Peloponnesian War and which is in his history written those millennia ago. And there’s so much in it that seems modern.

“He talks about doctors, for instance, dying of the plague in Athens because they were obviously very much in the frontline and very vulnerable to catching it from their patients. He talks about people wanting to be social and wanting to support others and not being able to do it, or going and doing it anyway and getting the plague themselves.”

Frank told Ginger many people “…are turning to those earlier episodes to see how people coped, what were the kinds of problems… [and] what did people think was harmful in those previous circumstances?”

Episode 2 of the Seriously Social podcast turns in a totally different direction. It features University of Canberra legal scholar Professor Kim Rubenstein.

Kim turns the spotlight onto how gender roles are playing out in and the pandemic. She asks: Why are we seeing so many blokes on TV when in fact, many people doing frontline work are women?

“If you just think back to those original images of those press conferences, there are images of the Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, the Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, the Health Minister, Greg Hunt, and of course, the Chief Medical Officer, Brendan Murphy—four white men, who are the image of decision making and responsibility for the nation. 

“Now, it’s not that they are not necessarily capable, but it just reminds us of the absence of women in that context,” says Kim.

The Seriously Social podcast is available on Spotify, Stitcher, Apple, and Android. You’ll also find subscribe buttons and the latest episodes on the Academy’s website.

Seriously Social is hosted by Ginger, Sue is executive producer. Voiceovers and audio help from Mark Jennings.

If you have an idea for an episode, get in touch with the Academy.   

Feature image: (L-R) Ginger Gorman and Sue White. Photo: Hilary Wardhaugh