Between Individual and Collective Experiences of the Pandemic. Analysis from the Perspective of Biographical and Collective Trajectories

Abstract

The article explores individual and collective experiences of the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic in Poland (autumn–winter 2020) through the sociological concepts of biographical and collective trajectories. The study applies a biographical-narrative method to analyse a diary awarded first place in the competition Everyday Life in the Time of Coronavirus, organised by the Institute of Social Economy of the SGH Warsaw School of Economics in cooperation with Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń and the University of Wrocław. The article aims to demonstrate the interrelations between an individual narrative of loss and mourning and the collective processes of disorganization, chaos, and attempts to reconstruct meaning that constitute the shared experience of the COVID-19 pandemic. The theoretical framework refers to the work of Fritz Schütze and its Polish developments and reinterpretations by Alicja Rokuszewska- Pawełek, Amelia Krawczyk-Bocian, and Krystyna Barłóg. In a broader perspective, the article draws on the long tradition of diary research conducted at the Institute of Social Economy, initiated by Ludwik Krzywicki in the 1930s. The author argues that
contemporary diary competitions serve not only as a valuable source of sociological knowledge about societies in crisis but also as a space for self-therapy and social dialogue on suffering.