The Social Space between Border and Boundary: Is the Lockdown in Latin America a “State of Exception” or a “State of Social Exception”?

Abstract

In this article, aspects concerning the dynamics that take place in a well-defined “social space” when factors that are partly or totally independent of individuals break into it (i.e., pandemics, wars, revolutions and similar) will be explored. The reference is to “social space” since, by placing itself in the meso dimension of analysis, this concept succeeds in overcoming the differences between the concepts of border and boundary by encompassing both the physical/material and socio-psycho-relational aspects that in it is realized. In order to achieve this objective, what happened as a consequence of the “confinement” (lockdown) caused by the pandemic for the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which started at the end of 2019, will be brought as an example to support the reflections. The lockdown produced a scenario - differentiated by geographical areas (here the reference will be to Latin America and Colombia in particular) - in which individuals’ perception was characterized by a state of continuous tension that has deconstructed and redefined the social living space that was divided between a “state of exception” and a “state of social exception”