Opportunities and challenges for social sciences in the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic

The global pandemic of COVID-19 poses multiple challenges to the world order as it has evolved up to now. This includes industry, world trade, travel, education system, health care services and human security. A serious self-reflection is necessary within the sphere of social sciences so as to the nature of knowledge production we are currently engaged in and how to address challenges posed by the coronavirus for ethics of research, methods used and epistemological framework in general. More importantly, social sciences have a crucial role to play in understanding the nature of the pandemic itself, its impact on life, livelihoods, economic processes, social support mechanisms, vulnerable groups in society, social harmony and international relations, to list a few areas of direct relevance to social sciences. My argument in this editorial is that while the pandemic poses a real threat to the current mode of operation in social sciences globally, this may perhaps be a blessing in disguise in so far as we take account of the need to revamp our theories and approaches towards understanding human co-existence with each other but also with viruses, microbes and many other living entities (‘actants’ from the angle of Science and Technology scholars such as Bruno Latour 1997) in a rapidly changing global environment with shrinking resources and a wide variety of social, ecological and economic challenges.