Everyday urban life: genealogy and journal of actors’ body in the viral city

Abstract

This text aims to understand how the COVID-19 pandemic influences contemporary society, particularly in its most basic configurations, the daily urban life of social agents and their urban bodies, within the global city and, more recently, inside the viral city. To this purpose, a synthesis of part of an ongoing project is presented here, in two dimensions of everyday life: daily times in conjunction with everyday spaces. In the diachronic and historical axis of reality, transformed today into a viral society, it is possible to distinguish the following daily life configurations: cyclical everyday, routine everyday, exceptional every day and dialogical every day. In the synchronic axis, and particularly in contemporaneity, 10 sociological theses are proposed here to try to decipher some of the main processes where the impact of COVID-19 on the coeval urban fabric and the body of its actors is most felt. Finally, the author suggests some possible alternative strategies to the pandemic in the context of today’s viral daily life. However, these are only very general lines of sociological reflection, intended only to help define future courses of action for practical solutions, which are still unclear. That may be done within the framework of reconstruction of a healthier and more creative urban daily life for all citizens of the planet.