“Only the future will tell us if we’re doing this right”

Doing everyday life of the Swedish strategy

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to study how people make sense of the “Swedish strategy” in dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic as well as how they implement this strategy in their everyday life. The article is based on an interview study with eight people living in Stockholm and the interviews were all performed during the initial phase of the pandemic (April–May 2020). Theoretically, this article takes its point of departure in a sociological interest for how people make sense of uncertainty, here exemplified by everyday life during the Covid-19 pandemic. The results show that the interviewees support the Swedish strategy and its scientific ground at the same time as they experience uncertainty in how this strategy should be transformed into everyday practices. This ambivalence can be understood in relation to Beck’s “risk society” and his thesis about human’s paradoxical approach to science and risk experts as well as in relation to Tulloch and Lupton’s sociocultural perspective on risk and everyday life.