Humangeographie Young Adults in the COVID-19 Pandemic (COV-IDENTITIES)

The sample included three groups of young adults: (1) pupils in their final school year (Maturant*innen) at schools, (2) students of vocational schools (Berufsschüler*innen), and (3) University students enrolled at Universities in Tyrol. The leading research question is: How are young adults making their everyday spaces, identities and futures during the COVID-19-pandemic? The project’s main objectives are to analyse how young adults are actively responding to and making their lives during the global COVID-19 pandemic and the concomitant governmental measures on a very personal level. In doing so, we seek to contribute to knowledge on the micro-level which we perceive as essential for authorities, educators and researchers to be able to assess the actual effects the measures will have had on young people.

The open, explorative approach and large multi-media data set that resulted from the study has so far allowed us to analyse  a variety of topics: Already published are insights into how the pandemic has affected (1) young adults’ relationships to the city, their (2) situatedness and navigation through complex and entangled socio-material-technological spaces, their (3) evaluation and adaptation to distance learning as well as their (4) vaccination attitudes and adherence or resistance to pandemic measures. We have also contributed to the discussion of the (5) development of  remote and mobile in-situ methods that are suited to accompany subjects in challenging life situations such as a pandemic. We are currently analysing the data in regards to students’ senses of nature and their emotional connections to nature in the pandemic and effects on their social relations, friendship and related social well-being.