Social vulnerability and the pandemic in Cuba: impacts on family food security from the sociology of risk

Abstract

The current health situation, generated by the COVID-19 outbreak, has led to substantial impacts on local food systems on a global scale. Its consequences are marked by inequalities, variations in food prices, and instabilities in production and consumption that affect family food security (FFS) and cause situations of social vulnerability. Within this panorama, the sociology of risk constitutes an essential theoretical and methodological space to analyse the prevailing reality. The aim of this study, therefore, is to assess the relationship between social vulnerability and pandemics from the Cuban context, based on its impacts on FFS within the analytical framework of risk sociology. This study uses qualitative and quantitative methodology and scientific observational studies and surveys. Their results verified the existence of situations of social food vulnerability in the territorial area studied. The problems identified include the following: conflicts regarding the integration of food access, stability, availability and use within the family, the increase in practices or behaviours related to care, and gender inequalities during lockdown. These problems or situations impact food security at the family household level, and social relationships have been exacerbated by the pandemic crisis.