Intergenerational Changes During the Pandemic: Societal Transformation and Temporal Indeterminacy

In this theoretical essay, I try to present underlying and partially implicit indications that intergenerational relationships are reconfiguring during the pandemic. I start by presenting some indications in favor of a change of era, at least some deep changes that are occurring during the pandemic amidst temporal continuity and discontinuity. I follow by looking at the experience of indeterminacy as indicating a state of social transition. I particularly delve into indeterminacy and ambivalence as experienced in relation to identity and temporality. For the latter, I elaborate on the idea that people experience both acceleration and deceleration. Mainly following Mannheim (1982, 1990) all of those indications lead me to argue that intergenerational changes are happening and that they take the form of intergenerational ambivalences. I explain it by suggesting that people are "stuck" between the form and the content of their generational experience as well as between the past and the future.