Microsystems of interaction. Attacks on health personnel in the COVID-19 pandemic in Mexico

ABSTRACT

This article proposes a conceptual framework to describe interaction as social microsystems in which aggressions to health workers are framed as specific types of interactions. To describe aggressions, a review of 81 press releases and 39 interviews were done to understand the experiences of health workers. Three types of aggressions were identified;rational exclusion, stigmatization and hostile outbreak. The findings showed that rational choice for distancing in interaction and wearing a white coat or uniform as a symbolic element of risk propitiate specific forms of violence against public health workers. The prominence of time for the disappearing of confrontations is also explained. Finally, the research provides a general framework for understanding the pandemic as an object of sociological study.