Spring is coming! Brief list about our next seminaries

After 10 days of holidays due to Holy Week, POBICS is coming back and we want to offer next

seminaries we will hold. March has been a very busy month, and we have put off each seminary many times. For this reason, we post here our coming meetings:

-Andrés G. Seguel Seminary: Tomorrow (April 1st) is the last day after two more days of seminary. More info about it here.

-Last book published by Foucault (in Spanish): "Del Gobierno de los Vivos". April 6th, 13th and 20th. From 11:00 to 12:30.

-Joint Meeting of the European Society for the History of Human Sciences: This is the first Congress where POBICS will be this summer. You can read more about it here.

-4S/EASST Congress: The big and most expected congress. We have sent 4 contributions and POBICS is taking part from the inside with our leader, Francisco Tirado. You cant read them here, here, here and here!

-II International Anthropology AIBR Congress: In the same way as the last year, POBICS will be in the AIBR Congress with two new contributions. More info here.

Remember, all of them are free and they are open to you, your buddies, colleagues or anyone interested in. We are in Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB), at Psychology Faculty, Martín Baró's room (at Social Psychology Department).

See you soon!

Photo Credit: Sarah Barker

Ebola, images and DA analysis. Our last report

Seizing we are in Easter, we want to offer the report about our last seminary. In this case, wefor our research: a master' tesis about ebola, images and Discourse Analysis. Here you go:

discussed about a very interesting topic

Public health has become into a national security matter: what to do with the first one, now has to do with the latter.

"Viral forest": the monster tree from Africa that sends us occasionally diseases from animals (monkeys, bats, etc ...).

Global Health should move towards a system of global surveillance. (it remind us to Caduff): Each failed epidemic does not mean you have to rethink the parameters from which we think, but it means we have to improve these systems.

Distinction between: 1) Global health as development and 2) Global Health as a global health security. 

What do we mean by global? In Global Health, biopolitics and geopolitics come together. The conception we manage is important in order to understand what is exactly our topic.

From what mediations occurs the shift between the local to the global? Ebola is described 1) in different scales (viral, viral forest, forest-city relationship, etc ...) 2) how we move from one scale to another, and 3) by or from what translations this is possible.

In ANT, the global sense only is conceptualized by operators that upgrade or "enact" the global in a concrete regime and in a concrete sense. Ebola, for example, is a way to enact global, through public agencies, private sector, philanthropic organizations, academic institutions, health institutions, etc.

An effective response would require ebola "Staff, Stuff, Space and Systems". Interesting sentence.

Global health does not look (or at least not today) humanitarian aid, but the security. (interesting idea for a paper); or a derivative: in the first part of the 2015 Global Health, safety was sought, to make investments, but now it is looking for safety within, by the threat of contagion we shift to a global security, and any more for a Global Health.

Another interesting concept appeared in this document is the "Biological turn".

Finally, the name of the master' dissertation was: Ebola Exceptionalism: On the Intersecting Political and Health Geographies of the 2014-2015, and was written by Margaret M. Wilson.

Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey

Our papers for the 4S/EASST Congress. Alternative Actors

With this post we start a serie of publications where we want to show the short abstract about our several contributions to the 4S/EASST Congress (the biggest STS congress around the world), so you could read the topic about our submissions (all of them are in review process so finally,  they could be not accepted). By the way, you can see our track status here.

Today, we show the third proposal, titled: "Alternative actors and their relevance for emergency warning systems".

The paper propose to debate on the performance by other means of alternative actors during an emergency crisis; focusing on the warning system's, on the moment before design proposal and on uses given to content (incl. visual) on virtual platforms through co-design in (open)knowledge proposals.

Photo Credit: Michael Lehet

Our papers for the 4S/EASST Congress. Modes of Existence

With this post we start a serie of publications where we want to show the short abstract about our several contributions to the 4S/EASST Congress (the biggest STS congress around the world), so you could read the topic about our submissions (all of them are in review process so finally,  they could be not accepted). By the way, you can see our track status here.

Today, we show the last one, titled: "Scenarios as modes of existence in knowledge about biological threats"

Scenarios to think biological threats are modes of existence. They are truth-making procedure. So, they operate building states of exception; they produce images of exception and; life is considered the subject and the object of its monitoring. Ebola pandemics will be our empirical work.


Photo Credit: Jeremy Brooks

Our papers for the 4S/EASST Congress. Panic

With this post we start a serie of publications where we want to show the short abstract about our several contributions to the 4S/EASST Congress (the biggest STS congress around the world), so you could read the topic about our submissions (all of them are in review process so finally,  they could be not accepted). By the way, you can see our track status here.

Today, we show the second one, titled: "Between Panic and Panic – Fear as a Dangerous Balance in Epidemic Governance".

This paper wants to argue that a regime of pandemic preparedness can only be installed in the form of fear as a pivotal point between two forms of panic that brings the present and the future under a mix of different forms of control by the individual and society. Observations from various focus groups will shed light on the construction and management of fear under a horizon of global pandemic threats.

Photo Credit: David Jubert

Our papers for the 4S/EASST Congress. Images

With this post we start a serie of publications where we want to show the short abstract about our several contributions to the 4S/EASST Congress (the biggest STS congress around the world), so you could read the topic about our submissions (all of them are in review process so finally,  they could be not accepted). By the way, you can see our track status here.

Today, we show the first one, titled: "Images and State of Emergency in Biological Treats".

Short Abstract: Images have accompanied the social from its origin.We want to reclaim their original status throughout the concept of State of Emergency. We will show some images from recent epidemics (zika, ebola...) understood as scenarios in order to unfold what is an state of emergency and their implications.

Next post you could read about the second proposal, about fear and panic!

Photo Credit: Frankieleon