Object of jealousy or solidarity, the mask scrutinized by sociologists

• Since the start of the coronavirus epidemic in France, the question of the mask has been omnipresent.
• Sociologists have launched a study to determine what this protective material arouses as feeling among the French.

It all started with a jog. While in full stride, out to stretch at the start of the confinement period, Franck Cochoy, professor at Toulouse Jean-Jaurès University, fell on a mask, thrown at the side of the road.

Specialized in sociology of techniques, engaged in research on disposable products, he saw in the mask an interesting source of study, while this small protective rectangle was at the heart of the news, mono centered on the epidemic of coronavirus . "The idea was to see how people positioned themselves in relation to the mask when it concerned them," says the Toulouse researcher affiliated with the interdisciplinary laboratory Solidarités, Sociétés, Territoires (LISST).

Social inequality

With colleagues from the universities of Albi, Nice and Toulouse and the École des Mines de Paris, he launched a call for testimonials from the general public in regional newspapers, inviting people to express themselves as freely as possible.

Mask against the coronavirus: these sociology researchers need your testimony https://t.co/ZTX6nwCruh pic.twitter.com/7lo8Ilie0d

“We received around 3,000 responses in a limited time. These testimonies allow, for example, to clear up a mystery: where do these masks come from, why do people have such precious masks in public space when they should be reserved for nursing staff? Wearing a mask thus brings out a new type of social inequality; it creates a social division between those who have it and those who do not, ”says Franck Cochoy.

By dissecting these testimonies, he discovers that if some had masks, it was not because they had been able to get them in the background. Citizens thus explain having anticipated the epidemic and made purchases from January as a precaution. Others had supplies dating back to the previous H1N1 epidemic, or simply had protective masks for household work.

“It fans fantasies, especially about the disproportionate place that is given to traffic when it seems tiny. The testimonies also highlight the solidarity of some in their choice not to wear masks. If they do, it is for an altruistic purpose, to reserve this mask for caregivers ”, continues the researcher.

What do the “first of the chores” think about it?

But between March 17 and today, the philosophy has changed. What was the exception will become the norm. The wearing of masks in public space is doomed to become commonplace, many people having started to make them and political discourse on the subject having evolved, so that “we feel more and more naked if we don't have one, ”notes Franck Cochoy, who published a first article on the subject in the Sciences Humaines magazine .

So many feelings around the mask that he will continue to analyze with his colleagues over the next few months. He is interested with Gérald Gaglio, sociology professor in Nice, in the case of the "first chores", the nursing assistants, the delivery men, the garbage collectors who continued to work, sometimes without masks and were able to cross paths with some by having one, but without real necessity.

Reindeer

Coronavirus in Rennes: Masks have been ordered, the 2.5 million euro bill will be shared

Nice

Coronavirus in Nice: In five days, more than 200,000 people from Nice have already ordered the masks promised by Estrosi

• Covid 19
• Coronavirus
• Health
• Society
• Toulouse
• Sociology
• study