Deglobalize Covid-19: The pandemic from an off-center perspective

This article proposes a retrospective look at the last year following the World Health Organization’s declaration of Covid-19 as a pandemic, and seeks to reflect the wide diversity of its impact. In reviewing research from around the world, a panorama emerges showing the vast complexity of the phenomenon. This article reviews many of the analyses and debates that have been proposed from the framework of political philosophy, which are drawn almost exclusively from the European context. It shows that the suggested diagnoses, models and concepts can not be universally applied across geographies, such as Latin America, Asia or Africa. It therefore proposes to “deglobalize” the Covid-19 pandemic and invites the reader to consider it through another lens. © 2021, Universidade de Brasilia. All rights reserved.

COVID-19: Psychosocial Impact on School in Chile. Inequalities and Challenges for Latin America

The Coronavirus-19 (COVID-19) pandemic has exceeded five million cases worldwide, and its consequences have been devastating for health and society in general. As part of the health protocols that seek to mitigate the pandemic's effects, school closures were implemented in most countries, where Chile was no exception. In the framework of this article, we seek to give an account of the psychosocial impact of this initiative on Chilean schools and to broaden the reflection to the rest of Latin America. In this sense, we analyze government decisions since the creation of the Aprendo en Linea [I Learn Online] program and propose a contextualization and a contrast with the measures adopted in other countries. We then explore the conditions of the exercise of the teaching activity, its consequences in the family context, and the impact on the relationship between families and schools. This allows us to visualize, once again, not only the structural inequality of the Chilean education system but also its maintenance and eventual deepening. The discussions and measures to be implemented in the current situation pose challenges that, beyond the context of Chile, can be extended to other Latin American countries.

Young People’s Digital Interactions from a Narrative Identity Perspective: Implications for Mental Health and Wellbeing

The current response article began by situating this journal volume in the current COVID-19 pandemic context which has driven young people into digital spaces for far longer periods of time than ever. Many scholars, policy makers, and the public at large are recognizing that these social digital spaces may be the only outlet by which youth and their families can remain safe (at least physically), while also participating in some important social outlets. We discussed the notion of hybrid reality and argued that young people themselves often do not experience their digital and physical contexts as functionally distinct, despite there being good scientific reasons for examining these contexts separately. We then considered whether or not digital activity (at least some) should be considered pathological or inherently unhealthy for young people. Like most of the commentators, we advocated for a nuanced approach and emphasized the importance of a functional, developmental lens. In the second half of our response, we turned to the narrative identity framework itself and clarified misconceptions about what we considered novel about our approach. We found it particularly useful to explain why self-determination theory can be regarded as a constituent of the identity development framework, but that it does not subsume it. We moved on to discuss how the new insights provided by the commentators could be synthesized and suggested directions for new research studies and methodologies. Finally, we ended with an examination of how a more elaborated narrative identity framework offers specific directions for designing new digital interventions for promoting young people’s mental health and wellbeing. It is our hope that the target article with its detailed articulation of the narrative identity framework, together with the thoughtful commentaries and this response, can together inform future research, practice, and policy relevant to digital activity and its impact on young people’s mental health and wellbeing. © 2020 The Author(s). Published with license by Taylor & Francis Group, LLC.