Res. Asst. Dr. Zübeyde Demircioğlu from the Department of Sociology of our university presented her paper titled ‘Epistemic Authority in the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Case of Turkey’ at the Pandemic-themed conference organized by the Society for Social Science Studies at the University of Toronto between 06-09 October 2021.
Demircioğlu started her speech by stating that the pandemic as an epistemic crisis increased uncertainty and expert knowledge gained importance in this period; hence, she emphasized that many questions about the disease remained unanswered due to the rapidly spreading nature of Covid-19. Considering this, despite scientific uncertainty and the lack of scientific consensus, Demircioğlu stated that countries had to adopt various strategies to make public decisions, and said that in the case of Turkey, the Coronavirus Science Board was established as a scientific advisor. In this context, Demircioğlu determined a timeline for the important events and decisions on public health as a part of the national pandemic policy and analyzed how the Science Board was constructed as an epistemic authority in a discursive context in the early stages of the pandemic. Then, discussing how the Board presented the scientific uncertainties and conflicts among the citizens, Demircioğlu finally examined how the public reacted to the Board’s expert advice.