CONFLICTED REALITIES: THE SCHÜTZIAN ADDITION TO THEORISING ON THE SYMBOLIC STRUGGLES OVER COMMUNION IN SERBIA DURING COVID
CONFLICTED REALITIES: THE SCHÜTZIAN ADDITION TO THEORISING ON THE SYMBOLIC STRUGGLES OVER COMMUNION IN SERBIA DURING COVID

Summary/Abstract: This paper aims to analyse and interpret the heated public debate prompted by the organization of communion during the pandemic. Performing this ritual during the lockdown, enacted due to the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, spawned intensive and highly polarised public reactions. The emerging debates vividly portrayed the symbolic struggles or culture wars pertinent to the Serbian society. Bourdieu’s theory of classification struggles and Lamont’s conceptualization of symbolic boundaries provided the framework for an earlier consideration of these disputes (Jovanović 2022). This article attempts a theoretical recasting. Taking cues from Schütz’s essay “Equality and the meaning structure of the social world” regarding “the ways of life of a group as seen by in-group and out-group”, a portrayal of socially approved typifications organized in domains of relevances of the aforementioned conflicted groups will be made. This will in turn provide insights into “relative natural worldview” (relativ natürliche Weltanschauung) of the conflicted groups: the means by which they define its situation within the social cosmos, with this definition(s) becoming an integral element of the situation itself. Pronounced hostility between the “defenders” and the “disputers” of communion during COVID can be understood relying on Schütz’s discussion of the out-group’s interpretation of the world taken for granted by the in-group.

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