Research on vulnerability and suffering in a singular time-space. Commentary on the “COVID-19 and structural violence” research

Abstract

The text presents a commentary on the research "COVID-19 and Structural Violence", which aims to explore and document the experience of this disease in the San Salvador Metropolitan Area, based on the premise that the way of experiencing said disease would be marked by the socioeconomic position of those who suffered it. To address this issue, the text offers some theoretical and methodological comments, which revolve around the importance of this multidisciplinary study to approach the field of studies on disease, pain, vulnerability, suffering or death from alternative perspectives to the biomedical model. At the methodological level, the challenges of research practices posed by an adverse context are highlighted, not only at the public health level, but also sociopolitically; as well as the innovation in the use of different devices such as the image and the stories built from these, both for the registration of the object of study and its narrative approach, and for the preservation of the experience of that particular space-time in the country. This research invites us to think about the possibilities and potential of health research in a country like El Salvador in broader terms, where the knowledge of the social sciences articulates and overlaps with that of the health sciences in mutual benefit for a deeper understanding of the phenomena.

ECA Estudios Centroamericanos, Vol. 77, No. 770, 2022 : 115-127.