Toward global citizenship? People (de)bordering their lives during COVID-19 in Latin America and Europe.

The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted global interdependencies, accompanied by widespread calls for worldwide cooperation against a virus that knows no borders, but responses were led largely separately by national governments. In this tension between aspiration and reality, people began to grapple with how their own lives were affected by the global nature of the pandemic. In this article, based on 493 qualitative interviews conducted between 2020 and 2021, we explore how people in Argentina, Austria, Bolivia, Ecuador, Ireland, Italy and Mexico experienced, coped with and navigated the global nature of the pandemic. In dialogue with debates about the parameters of the 'global' in global health, we focus on what we call people's everyday (de)bordering practices to examine how they negotiated (dis)connections between 'us' and 'them' during the pandemic. Our interviewees' reactions moved from national containment to an increasing focus on people's unequal socio-spatial situatedness. Eventually, they began to (de)border their lives beyond national lines of division and to describe a new normal: a growing awareness of global connectedness and a desire for global citizenship. This newfound sense of global interrelatedness could signal support for and encourage transnational political action in times of crises.

The social and socio-political embeddedness of COVID-19 vaccination decision-making: A five-country qualitative interview study from Europe.

The uptake ofCOVID-19 vaccines has varied considerably across European countries. This study investigates people's decision-making process regarding vaccination by analyzing qualitative interviews (n = 214) with residents from five European countries: Austria, Germany, Italy, Portugal, and Switzerland. We identify three factors that shape vaccination decision-making: individual experiences and pre-existing attitudes towards vaccination, social environment, and socio-political context. Based on this analysis, we present a typology of decision-making regarding COVID-19 vaccines, where some types present stable stances towards vaccines and others change over time. Trust in government and relevant stakeholders, broader social factors, and people's direct social environment were particularly relevant to these dynamics. We conclude that vaccination campaigns should be considered long-term projects (also outside of pandemics) in need of regular adjustment, communication and fine-tuning to ensure public trust. This is particularly pertinent for booster vaccinations, such as COVID-19 or influenza.

Democratic research: Setting up a research commons for a qualitative, comparative, longitudinal interview study during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The sudden and dramatic advent of the COVID-19 pandemic led to urgent demands for timely, relevant, yet rigorous research. This paper discusses the origin, design, and execution of the SolPan research commons, a large-scale, international, comparative, qualitative research project that sought to respond to the need for knowledge among researchers and policymakers in times of crisis. The form of organization as a research commons is characterized by an underlying solidaristic attitude of its members and its intrinsic organizational features in which research data and knowledge in the study is shared and jointly owned. As such, the project is peer-governed, rooted in (idealist) social values of academia, and aims at providing tools and benefits for its members. In this paper, we discuss challenges and solutions for qualitative studies that seek to operate as research commons.

Power of rhythms - trains and work along the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in Siberia.

Train rhythms are dictated by regulations as well as the collaboration of human and non-human actants. When a railroad is the prime form of ground transportation and the mono-industry forming force in the cities along the railroad, the rhythms of trains have power over the everyday life of people who rely on them as passengers, workforce and traders. This is the case of the Baikal-Amur Mainline (BAM) in Siberia. The paper tackles the interaction of natural, technical, bureaucratic and economic rhythms and asks where power structures are located. Material and social networks of the involved actants are shaped by constraints and forces: Moscow driven bureaucracy, technological needs and natural conditions as well as the individual or collective needs and aspirations of social beings are entangled within the power structures that are intrinsic to railroad operations. This article is based on ethnographic field work in Siberia along the BAM. In it we argue that the diversity of rhythms introduced by the train company dominates other work and life rhythms that vary across gender, age, class and family status.