Beyond the Virus: Multidisciplinary and International Perspectives on Inequalities raised by COVID-19

This report summarises the Work-in-Progress Symposium ‘Beyond the Virus: Multidisciplinary and International Perspectives on Inequalities raised by COVID-19’. The event consisted of four panels over two days. It brought together the contributors for the forthcoming edited collection with Bristol University Press (BUP), due to be published in 2022 under the Bristol Studies in Law and Social Justice series, tentatively entitled “Beyond the Virus: Multidisciplinary and International Perspectives on Inequalities raised by COVID-19” edited by Dr Sabrina Germain and Dr Adrienne Yong at The City Law School. The presentations were based on the chapters to the edited collection by each contributor and were followed by discussions. This collection examines social inequalities brought to stark attention by the COVID-19 pandemic under three thematic strands: power and governance, gender and sexuality, and marginalised communities. This project brings together a range of international scholars from multiple disciplines (law, sociology and politics) to showcase a diversity of perspectives on these themes. The unknowns around this novel virus and the scale of the epidemic make COVID-19 and its inequalities a timely subject. Understanding each of these issues from the perspective of multiple disciplines, with law at its centre, is the first step towards tackling them concretely and achieving social justice. The thematic coherence on social inequalities from international and multidisciplinary lenses is the project’s central feature.