Introduction

This introductory chapter presents the different “spaces” which, in the exceptional conditions of a pandemic, interconnect and proffer a number of multiple interfaces. “Beyond” used in the title of this book carries the implication that the pandemic calls notably for a remodelling of the previously established concept of a global workplace, to which a virtual dimension now needs to be added, and is also used in the sense that this collection goes beyond the workplace to establish parallels with the management of and communication around the pandemic itself. A number of issues are fore-grounded, such as the future of remote work, the challenges raised by online communication, the “digital turn” in communication practice, the viability of accounting for differences in national responses to the pandemic in terms of culture, the French “exception” and questions of surveillance, (bio)power and trust, whether “intrasocial” or between the agents and institutions of government and citizens.