Paper short abstract:

The aim of this paper is to study how complex entanglements between COVID-19 guidelines from The Public Health Agency of Sweden and the civil society developed during the first months of the pandemic. What kind of “COVID cultures” emerged in this organizations?

Paper long abstract:

This paper is based on interviews with organization representatives for three different civil society’s organizations in Sweden: women's shelters, homelessness organizations and deacons. From March 2020 I have followed how they have adapted their work in relation to the risks that the emerging infectious disease SARS-CoV-2 viruses evokes. It has been short telephone interviews that only give a glimpse of the complex practice in the everyday work with people in vulnerable situations. Isolated women and children at risk of violence, older people with very few contacts or people that has no home. The aim of this paper is to study complex entanglements between this organizations and the COVID-19 guidelines from The Public Health Agency of Sweden. What kind of “COVID cultures” emerged in this organizations? How are the guidelines translated into practice in this organizations? What similarities and differences are there between the organizations? What infrastructures are changed and what have consisted over time? How has this affected the work with people that even before the pandemic was in vulnerable situations? Or with other words, what kind of “COVID cultures” have emerged in this organizations during the first months of the pandemic? With this kind of questions I hope to analyze the complex entanglements there are between the knowledge production in different political and scientific-medical performance – read guidelines – and civil society’s organizations.