Res. Asst. Dr. Zübeyde Demircioğlu from the Department of Sociology of our university presented her paper titled ‘Scientific Uncertainty and Covid-19 Pandemic: Face Mask Controversy in Turkey’ at the 19th ESA Conference organized between August 31 – September 3, 2021.
The pandemic, which marks a moment of epistemic crisis, is one of the periods in which uncertainty greatly increased. In times like these, access to reliable information is important as people become vulnerable to disinformation. This knowledge is in many cases (scientific) knowledge produced and disseminated by experts. However, due to its rapidly spreading nature, the pandemic outpaced the production of scientific knowledge, and many questions about the disease remained unanswered. In her study, Demircioğlu stated that uncertainty and conflicts are an integral part of science and emphasized that conflicts, which are a feature of scientific progress, are also frequently encountered during pandemics. Therefore, in the early stages of the pandemic, the origin and characteristics of the virus, ways of transmission and protection, screening tests, controversies such as drugs and treatment methods, and the vaccine debate have remained on the agenda for a long time and turned into hotly debated topics in the public arena. The author also stated that the discussions on the use of masks, which have become one of the most valid pandemic measures all over the world, also intensified during the pandemic period, and that scientific discussions about the effectiveness of various mask types still continue. In this study, Demircioğlu, by creating a timeline containing the key events and decisions of the national pandemic policy in order to monitor public actions and changes, focused on how the process was managed in Turkey, considering the global aspect of the use of masks in the context of the World Health Organization’s statements. The turning points of the mask debate in terms of scientific evidence and political authority, the decisions taken and practices, and ultimately how the discourse about the mask transformed over time and how the conflict was resolved are among the other topics discussed in the study.