New paper sent: Biopolitics, biosurveillance and bios

This week we have been reviewing and finishin a new paper that we will send along this years to

"Convergencia, Revista de Ciencias Sociales" journal.  A Mexican and bilingual Spanish-English Journal. In this post, we want to offer some points about this paper. We hope it will be accepted and published soon!

Title: BIOPOLITICS SHIFT IN THE 21ST CENTURY: SYNDROMIC OBSERVATION AS CONTEMPORARY (BIO)MONITORIZING DEVICE.

Abstract: 

Currently, biopolitics conception is widely spread and accepted in the Social Sciences since Michel Foucault popularize it in the 70’s in their lessons at the Collège de France. Basing us on our study case about epidemics and biosurveillance that we are carrying out for three years with several documental materials, interviews and focus groups; we point out that biopolitics is an outdated concept for the events of the beginning of the 21^st Century and we put forward syndromic observation as a new control dispositif not for control, but monitorization; and where citizenship, before surveilled; plays an active and surveilling role. Finally, we offer the main axes that describe syndromic observation.

Material employed:

1) European Council Directives

2) Infographics and diagrams realated with epidemics and biosurveillance.

3) CDC and WHO documents.

4) Newspapers news.

Some key references (in Spanish):

Deleuze, Gilles, (2014), El Poder. Curso Sobre Foucault II, Buenos Aires: Cactus.

Fearnley, Lyle. (2008), “Signals come and Go: Syndromic Surveillance and Styles of Biosecurity” en Environment and Planning A, núm. 40, 1615-1632.

Foucault, Michel, (2007), El Nacimiento de la Biopolítica, Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Foucault, Michel, (2003), Hay que Defender la Sociedad, Madrid: Akal.

Photo Credit: Hong Cham Bum