Travelling During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The Erosion of Everyday Certainties

Abstract

The social construction of reality (BERGER & LUCKMANN, 2007 [1969]) can be described on the basis of biographical experiences with the aid of autoethnographic texts (ELLIS, ADAMS & BOCHNER, 2010). Using biographical experiences with the aid of autoethnographic texts (ELLIS, ADAMS, & BOCHNER, 2010) I examine the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on creating everyday certainties. In the first part of the article I describe a vacation trip I took to Egypt in March 2020. This trip had a significant impact on my assumptions regarding everyday certainties, as looming quarantine measures and closing borders turned the vacation into an adventure. This part of the article will be followed by a theoretical exploration of the experience according to SCHÜTZ and LUCKMANN (1979 [1975], 1984). I analyze the erosion of everyday certainties in a socio-phenomenological way in order to not only fathom the experience descriptively, but also to locate it sociologically in a theoretical manner.