Green economy and Capitalism, our last POBICS meeting

This week we held another feedback and paper's discussion meeting. In this case, the topic was introduced by Jokin, one of our Master student; the topic was about green economy and Capitalism, specifically. 

Jokin presented a complete paper that was about to be delivered as master's dissertation, so we limited to give him some feedback in order to improve his analysis and his manuscript. 

Jokin has done several interviews with "bio" and green-food sellers in order to analyse if this kind of food is really an alternative to the mainstream markets options or instead, it is another "side" about the contemporary Capitalism. The thing is, it is a very insteresting work and we hope Jokin could publish it soon in order to share with all of you his analysis!

Photo Credit: torbakhopper

Digital epidemiology, a new meeting by POBICS

This week we have held another POBICS meeting. In this case, the topic was about digital epidemics, alternative actors and the "meeting point" between experts (physicians, nurses, scientifics...) and lay people or non-experts. About this concerns, epidemiology is a topic in which they are developing quickly. Some theories and concepts from Foucault and Actor-Network Theory are very relevant: subjetifier and subjectivity, actants and hybrids...

This issue is being carried out by our colleague Mariana Gavris. Although she has not to defend her doctoral dissertation until 2018, she is making great progress, and these two papers are a real proof of it. 

These papers are very close to completion, so we expect to read them soon published on journals. 

Photo Credit: Penn State

Last May meeting: Fear and Panic. New doctoral defense in POBICS.

This Tuesday we held the last May meeting by POBICS. In this occasion, we discussed and

commented a draft paper by Swen, our postdoc member. He is working on fear and panic within current epidemics. From a psychosocial view, Swen explain in this paper how governance is exercised throughout fear. We gave him some ideas and advises, mainly about empirical data. We think this is a good work, and we hope it will be published soon.

On the other hand, Enrique, one of our PhD students is finishing his doctoral dissertation as we announced last weeks. He is currently carrying out the last administrative tasks, and, if all is ok, we will defend the dissertation last July days or September. Thesis name is “Surveillance and Security. Life’s management in the 21^st Century”. The topic is about how life is understood upon some events occurred in the beginning of the 21^st Century (H1N1 and ebola outbreak, anthrax attacks, 11-S, controversies like genetically modified food or DNA developments…), and their implications in life surveillance’s and security’s terms. Defense will be opened to anywhere, so we will publish the exact day when we it would confirmed.

Photo Credit: PRO Karl-Ludwig Poggemann