Next paper: Scabies, Fear and Refugees in Germany

As we posted a month ago, we are about to publish several papers at the beginning of2016. One of them is very interesting due to the topic' relevance: the wave of refugees and the controversy given in the european politics and management. 

Because of it, we thought it can be quite important to analyse some news and events where refugees and bios were linked. In that sense, thanking to Swen (our german member), we could write this paper where this work is explained. In this post we will offer some key ideas in order to discuss and to know your opinion:

In the first place, we offer our basic hypothesis and we suggest the relationship between fear ( and other afections too ), and foreigness. Pandemics and the bios, as you will read, is a key element in this relationship due to the afections produced by "the other unknown".

In a second moment, we present the phenomenon as it is being lived in Germany. We present the " Myths of Hygiene " in fictional imaginaries but also in the West History. This point is important because it shows that fear and hygiene is not a new binomium, but a rooted think in our societies.

After this, we present emotions in the view we need them. Those emotions are related with the hygienics myth. Hygienics is enacted as a dispositiff that promote some very concrete emotions, and this occurs not only with scabies in the current wave of refugees, but also it have ocurred other times like the last ebola outbreak or about bioterrorism.

We don't want to show here the whole paper. We want to finalize with these sentence, gathered in this work:

"…Such as the issue of hygiene e.g. I mean I clean my toilet at home. So why should they not self-organise cleaning their toilets as well?”

Thomas de Maziere, German Minister for Internal Affairs.

Photo Credit: Geralt.

POBICS is in a new Webpage! TECSAL page

From a couple of weeks, POBICS has been integrated in a new web. This new place is a shared-page between CO-DIS and POBICS. CO-DIS is the other research group which aim is to analise STS on the Autonomous University of Barcelona. Their goals is related with health, robotics and childhoold. You can check more about them here.

The URL of this new web is: https://tecsal.wordpress.com/  and there you can check our joint activity as a "big" research group, because POBICS and CO-DIS usually do knowledge exchange, big seminaries, support each other, etc.

This does not means that our normal POBICS web does not exists any more. POBICS will have its webpage as always (http://pobics.wix.com/pobics)

In this web, you can also to put in touch with us and to check our social networks, the results of our co-managed works, our permanent staff, etc.

We think the best you can do is take a look at it directly!

Photo Credit: TECSAL (CO-DIS and POBICS) web.

A little piece of our work & ideas: Current inquiries by Marco Maureira

Today's post will be one video that Marco sent this week from Basque Country (where he is living currently) talking about our ideas and our work. Thus, we want to show how we work, what are our research inquiries, and definitely, a little piece of "our within". We hope you enjoy it:

That's all for now. We will very happy if you share our blog or comment with your buddies what are we doing. Check also our webpage: http://pobics.wix.com/pobics

Video Credit: Marco Maureira, member of our research staff.

Francisco Tirado's Seminary at CEHIC - UAB: POBICS, Pandemics, Scenarios, Early Warning-Systems and Images

As we were announcing this weekend, here is the recording about our seminary at the CEHIC, presenting our research group, our inquiries, and our research. There are two parts, and in the next post, we will publish the public questions made by the assistants:

(Note: video is in Spanish and probably you must turn up the volume).

Part I:

Part II:

 

Video Credit: POBICS Staff.

New course, new seminary: Paul Virilio

After a long break due to holidays and to the new course planification, we start announcing next wednesday is our first seminary for this course. 

In this season, we will read and discuss about Paul Virilio's work, "Speed and Politics". Book abstract from amazon says: "Speed and Politics (first published in France in 1977) is the matrix of Virilio's entire work. Building on the works of Morand, Marinetti, and McLuhan, Virilio presents a vision more radically political than that of any of his French contemporaries: speed as the engine of destruction. Speed and Politics presents a topological account of the entire history of humanity, honing in on the technological advances made possible through the militarization of society. Paralleling Heidegger's account of technology, Virilio's vision sees speed--not class or wealth--as the primary force shaping civilization. In this "technical vitalism," multiple projectiles--inert fortresses and bunkers, the "metabolic bodies" of soldiers, transport vessels, and now information and computer technology--are launched in a permanent assault on the world and on human nature. Written at a lightning-fast pace, Virilio's landmark book is a split-second, overwhelming look at how humanity's motivity has shaped the way we function today, and what might come of it."

Next post will be about the result of this seminary, but meanwhile, we want to expose the importance of this book for our research:

1. In first place, Virilio is one of the most known authors in the Social Sciences realm that works with speed concept. In fact, his main acknowledgement is by the "dromology" concept, or how war and technology are at the basis of the main events in the recent History.
2. Because we are working on acceleration operators, is important to know some implications and authors that have worked this concept either in other realms  and frameworks. Virilio and Halmut Rosa, for instance, are two of the most important exponents about this question (Maybe in future we will post about the Rosa's work).
3. We consider is also important to discuss this conception and wide it with our personal opinion, enriched along the two last years with our previous work. We hope learn not only from Virilio, but everyone who comes this wednesday.
4. Finally, we want to understand Virilio's work as a "door" whereby we can acces to a new range of authors and theories in order to write a new paper in the coming months.

That's all. We will be waiting for you next wednesday, at 11:00 in the Ana Garay's room, Social Psychology Deparment, UAB.

Thank you!

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Pandemics, Bioterrorism and International Security

The post of today is about one discussion carried out yesterday in the LinkedIn group called "Pandemics, Bioterrorism and International Security", where Ruth Mclure has sent me several and useful information about maps in the way we are researching currently.

The origin of this topic is one new appeared in Yahoo.com where is alerted about 15 children died due to the new strain of flu (H3N2) (you can read it here: http://yhoo.it/14mQcq8), and it is explained how each case is reported and how they are "counted" in order to stablish the boundary of a epidemics.

The sequence of the discussion' post can be read here http://linkd.in/1BHdFx0 but I am go to copy it here:

Me: "So interesenting new. But I have a "naïf" question that I'm sure you can answer: how are counted the cases and what is the procedure in order to report new cases in this kind of outbreak?? There is some kind of biosurveillance? and, in this case... how it works? 

Thanks in advanced."

Ruth Mclure: "Hi Enrique, you live in Spain, so things may be different there than here in the USA. 

When the Physicians or other Health practitioners Diagnose this Influenza Virus in Children and in Adults, forms are made out and forward to their local Health Departments for Case Counting and then those Cases are then forward to the State Health Departments, then the State Health Departments, Shares that information to the CDC (Communicable Disease Center) that is located in Atlanta, Georgia. There use to be Formal Cards made out with Patient Data on them, so the data of certain needed information on these patients actually will be counted as a case. One Person is equal to a case of Flu. Local Health Departments have an Epidemiology Department where these workers go into the fields, and do various functions on a broad base of Different Diseases, and keeps tallies (counts) on many of the Infectious Diseases. The Field Epidemiologists on the ground in South Africa are doing the same thing with Case finding, but with the Flu, these cases are all ready diagnosed, so you have the REPORTING side of this Flu Season. 

There are two different links that I will give to you, and I will give to you the first one that takes you over the the Flu Section of the CDC on the Internet Web. 

Here is the first Link of the Flu Department/Section on the Flu in CDC 

Title of the Link is Influenza (Flu) 

htp://www.cdc.gov/flu/index.htm 

if this above does not go through then just put this in your Search Bar cdc.gov/flu to see if you will be taken over to that Flu Site, or a page that will give you information about the present Flu. 

The next title is Situation Summary on Influenza A (H3N2) Variant Viruses ("H3N2v") 

Again if my Link below does not take you over than put the title of this Section into your Search Bar 

htp://www.cdc.gov/flu/swineflu/h3n2v-situation.htm 

or just put in cdc.gov/flu/swineflu "

Me: "Highly interesting what you say, Ruth. Thanks a lot, tomorrow I'll check the links you've posted. 

I have asked it because in my research group we are finding out how current maps of diseases with arrows and illustrated vectors between countries are built. Here in Europe (at least in Spain) we cannot find epidemiological stations as you said or sentinel sites... and this is tough in relation with the ebola outbreak, for instance."

Ruth Mclure: "Enrique, you may find this Link, if it will go through, something that might work for you in your Research Class.

http://apps.who.int/ithmap/

That map has never diseases on it. I do not have the name of he map.

Check to see if the link will go through."

The last question I have is how "risk" is defined in this map, a term that I guess is defined similarly by other epidemics experts and physicians. But if you have some to say or a definition of risk, your contribution will be welcome!

Finally, I want to thank to Ruth Mclure their explanations and contributions. She is a writer and editor about several topics, including epidemics and outbreaks.

Photo Credit: Flickr, user Stéfan.

Biopolitics & Biosecurity

In the last post I wrote were pointed out some ideas questioning if ebolavirus could be understood not merely as a virus, but a complex and heterogeneous entanglement constituted by artifacts, machines, technologies and other kind of materialities. Although I not mentioned it, there are other kind of elements like discourses, scientists, ideologies, enterprises, stakeholders and customers, for instance.

My dissertation is titled “Bioactants and biopolitics in the Preparedness and Surveillance Projects of the European Union” in line with one of the social interpretations of this topic. Biopolitics is a term within a large tradition in social sciences, whose most influent author was Michel Foucault although Rudolf Kjellén created the term.

Biopolitics as Foucault defined it: power over life has been exercised in the twin forms of the "anatomo-politics of the human body" and the "biopolitics of population." Both powers—that of bodily disciplines and that of the government of the population—are thus articulated around sexuality, and they support and reinforce each other.

Despite Foucault wrote  “The Birth of Biopolitics” or “Society must be Defended” talking about this management of life since the rise of Liberalism applied to sexuality, the jail or the asylum; it was not until Rabinow, Rose, Agamben, Negri or Espósito when biopolitics studies took off and were updated over the years because Foucault died in 1984. Thus, we can see Rabinow for instance:

We can use the term ‘biopolitics’ to embrace all the specific strategies and contestations over problematizations of collective human vitality, morbidity and mortality; over the forms of knowledge, regimes of authority and practices of intervention that are desirable, legitimate and efficacious.

Also Agamben when apply biopolitics to the bare life understood as the greek bíos reduced to zoé, a kind of life that emerges in an increasingly an even more naturalized state of exception.

Regarding biosecurity, I argue the turn into the logic of government from precaution to preparedness in the last decades also have biopolitical consequences:

•   New epidemics, outbreaks and diseases from this logic of preparedness look for an anticipatory knowledge of the emergence. This is achieved with new surveillance techniques based on computer and BigData technology where population are no longer conceived as a closed body, but an inter-connected body, intervened and embodied in dataflows and enacted in maps or diagrams.
• 
  
• Preparedness is bring to present a future possible threat through a new form of risk calculation: scenario planning. Thus, the management of life, bíos in the Agamben sense, become real in the present from a virtual future.
• 
  
• Life is redefined. From now, life can no longer be conceived aside from neither biotechnology nor bioscientific knowledge. What is life today, is defined by this kind of knowledge and no by right, law or royal power.

More info:

Rabinow's webpage 

References:

Agamben, G. (1995). Homo Sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life. California: Standfor University Press.

Foucault, M. (2003). Society must be Defended. New York: Picador.

Foucault, M. (2008). The Birth of Biopolitics. New York: Palgrave Macmillan.

Rabinow, P. Nikolas, R. (2006). Biopower Today. Biosocieties, 1, 195-217.

Photo Credit: Flickr User Cesar Harada