Jorge Castillo Seminary part II. State, Prehension, Community

What is the state? It is the modern Leviathan Hobbes? The emphasis on results over process and its relationship with neoliberalism. The state does not exist, or at least not previously, but is the result or it appears after certain rationality of how to govern, it is the expression of a correlate of specific political practices (eg, nowadays the sovereign is oneself about itself).

"Whatever-thing" based on evidence: endorsed by using indicators / Approved and supposedly valid, best, obeying certain interests like being economically profitable, etc. In Chile: government based on the evidence (and other countries such as USA).

Government of oneself and neoliberalism in Foucault: Where it fits into the State / Government of Chile currently form ???? We understand and we govern ourselves through and from these indicators given by the government based on the evidence (in this case, about the realm of health), looking for those results of these indicators.

Multiple government: A thing is a product of joining interests. Refers to a assamblage of several processes that make it possible. The human elements are the result of measurement, and the indicators creation. The government is based on objects that affect not only the citizens, but to the very people who create these processes (experts, politicians.

Indicators as creators of realities (eg. The homoparental family emerges on the public policy when the census added a question about same-sex couples with children).

Power as prehension (Whitehead):  Displacement of the social to the community as a place where power is produced by, for example, empowerment (people become active in their own government people, relationship of loyalty and responsibility towards the close ones with whom one's destiny is associated).

Attention focused  on poverty. Policies are developed for certain people, for the government of certain people. People who triumphed govern themselves and they do not need to be governed by another. So you just have to govern the poor through community empowerment through intervention as of government. Power as an accepted and normalized is sought and pretended, but not imposed. Everyday practices are captured by own people in the comunity, from a symmetrical plane.

Therefore, a spread between empowerment and healthcarism occurs, the technical elements mediate and translate the identity of the actors. 

Prehension relations: Reality becomes from the assciation of current entities that prehen and are prehended by others. Undifferentiated materiality. Each prehension has 3 elements: 1) Prehended subject (person, thing that can produce effect), concrete element prehended, captured. 2) the Datum is prehended, perspective of the initial datum, the feel of the datum. 3) Subjectively, how the subject prehends the datum, the effect prehensión

The power in the case explained by Jorge would be understood as a way of prehension. rather than coercion or imposition. Power arises as a result of progressive composition of relations and possibilities. Power emerges as a result of heterogeneous associations.

Photo Credit: Guian Bolisay

4S/EASST Deadline for Call for Papers is coming!

As we are announcing from December, the 4S/EASST International STS Congress is Calling for Papers in each one of the accepted tracks. POBICS is convinor in one of them. Remember the title of it is: "Biorisk Intelligence otherwise: Scenarios, Visual Knowledge and new Mechanisms of Surveillance". Until 21st February you can upload papers to the diferent tracks, so if you are interested in bios, threats and surveillance, you can call for our track here with this steps:

• Go to tracks,
• Select the track you would like to submit a paper to and
• Press ‘propose paper’ at the bottom of your chosen track.

As you will se, submission has diferent parts (title, authors, short abstract and big abstract). Here we offer two examples about the short abstract and, and so, you can also see what we will send to the track and what is about our track:

PAPER ONE:

-Paper title: Speed operators in the new epidemics.

-Short Abstract: From the 21^st Century’s arrival, epidemics or virus, and, in general, the bios, has suffered several and important shifts. One of this changes is related with the speed that events happen. We will offer some ideas about the notion of “speed operators” in order to shape this reality.

PAPER TWO:

-Paper title: Epidemics and Images within the new state of exception intelligence 

-Short Abstract: Images have accompanied the social from its origin. In a first moment, images had their own ontological status, but some decades after, text and discourse gaining ground to images and theses last ones was subordinated as a mere illustration or representation of what text said. We want to recover the original sense about images, starting from the latest theories about Visual Culture or Visual Anthropology. 

Photo Credit: Bill Barber

New open seminary by Jorge Castillo: Biopolitics, Biosociality, and Governamentality: Socio-Technical Associations in the Health and Illness Government

Next Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, our colleague Jorge Castillo, arrived from the Psychology School of the Santiago de Chile's University, will explain some ideas about his current work and research. The title of this seminary is "Biopolitics, Biosociality, and Governamentality: Socio-Technical Associations in the Health and Illness Government". The meeting will be in Spanish, from 16:00 to 20:00, and is open to anyone who wants to come (Martín Baró's Room, Social Psychology Department, UAB).

Here we offer a little abstract about the topics and ideas that Jorge will explain:

The seminary is adressed to researchers whose project is related with the concept of bio-governmentality in order to understand the relationships between a) recent political

institutional formations, b) the development of technologies in biomedical knowledge on various socio-economic scenarios, and c) subjective and personal productions. For this, we propose the three thematic approach, each considering a case study:

Table of Contents.

Day 1 social studies of biomedicine.

a) Science, Technology and Society: semiotic approaches to the study of materials biomedical activities .

b) Micropolitics of normality: a case study of cancer in Barcelona.

Day 2. Evidence-based policy and power as prehension.

a) Modernization and political scenarios.

b) Case Study: power and evidence-based policies.

Day 3. Biogovernmetality.

A) From biopolitics to biosociality.

b) Case study: obligation schemes, somatocracy and acceleration in the system Explicit Guarantees in Health from Chile.


Finally, we offer his main milestones as researcher (in Spanish):


Jorge es psicólogo por la Universidad de Santiago de Chile, Máster en Investigación en Psicología Social y Doctor en Psicología Social por la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, con la tesis “Oncología y ontología, un análisis semiótico-material del cáncer”, que analiza desde la teoría del actor-red, las implicancias de la articulación de tecnologías y prácticas biomédicas en le redefinición del significado socio-material de la enfermedad. Desde marzo de 2013, se desempeña como Profesor Asistente en la Escuela de Psicología de la Universidad de Santiago de Chile.

Sus ámbitos de interés se relacionan con los tipos de gobierno sustentados en procesos de índole biológica, y su relación con prácticas y procedimientos biomédicos. De manera más específica, su labor se ha especializado en realizar descripciones de diagramas biopolíticos y modos contemporáneos de gubernamentalidad.

Actualmente, es investigador principal del proyecto PAI Nº 791220018, relacionado con la 
performatividad de las políticas basadas en la evidencia en Chile, e investigador responsable del proyecto Fondecyt de Iniciación en Investigación Nº 11140590, titulado “Aportes de los Estudios de Ciencia y Tecnología a la comprensión de enfermedades abordadas por la medicina basada en la evidencia: regímenes de subjetivación, corporización y biosocialidad en el GES”, ambos financiados por la Comisión Nacional de Investigación Científica y Tecnológica de Chile (CONICYT).

Photo Credit: Shawn Campbell

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.

Ontological Turn report: Enacment, Agency and others

Enactment concept: it is difficult to translate into Spanish (our daily-use language). It is frecuently translated to act, but it is not exactly. In the legal field it is to enact, but it is translated as to constitute.

The STS have an inquiry about knowledge (how to know better or if a concrete knowledge  is true or false). It would be epistemology. STS then, turns to ontology: how one thing has become what it is, from an  empirical and descriptive view, as anthropologists work, in a very micro-fields and issues.

In the STS is a profound undermining of the taken for granted, "there is nothing qualitatively special on the scientifical practices who give them a real plus to the truth they offer".

(socio)Constructionism vs STS: the ontological turn in STS is not perspectivist. Constructionism silent on ontology, because there are different constructions; Instead, STS accept that there are multiple, changing and poor realities, but STS says that objects are created in practices, and these practices are worth reality, they are real. In the STS, the context idea is rejected: there is only the context in action: according as we speak, we create our context, and may be even materials around the object we're talking may not be part of our context and probably things that are very distant would be part of this temporal-and-poor context. Thus, there are practices and no contexts: as we speak, we connect with other elements, and in this way, we are going opening and contracting the network.

When can we consider that the actor-network has reality or is "closed" our particular actant? by the "Cutting the network" concept. When the process we're working is over due to their idiosyncrasical features. It can be anytime, unexpectedly and it can remain precarious.

Ontology, which is apparently a theoretical and a dense concept, STS make it an empirical concept.

Agency, translation and enactment are three different concepts.

Photo Credit: France Bleu

Macro Congress at Barcelona about STS!!

As we posted two post ago, next summer the major congress about Science and Technology Studies will be hold in Barcelona (Spain). The title in this ocassion is "Science and Technology by Other Means". For sure, from POBICS we will do our best in order to try to participate in this great event. 

Currently, submision for tracks is open. A track is more than just a communication: is the whole line where all kind of works will be received (Symposium, working papers, communications, documentals, images, etc). The website is just here: http://bit.ly/1NaISRS and information about tracks can be consulted here: http://bit.ly/1MvMFKZ.

In our webpage we will be posting more information as the date approaches. Meanwhile, you can check the basic in our "events" section (http://bit.ly/1DR6pj2).

The congress we will be operated in English preferably, so that anyone can access and participate (other languages can be utilised informally). Here the Congress' motto:

Science & technology by other means: Exploring collectives, spaces and futures.

"Some decades ago several STS scholars defended that science and technology could be considered as ‘politics by other means’. Many years have gone through, and STS researchers are increasingly turning their attention towards proposals and experiences where science and technology are increasingly performed ‘by other means’: in a variety of exploratory activities that include the articulation of collectives that do not fit with the traditional actors in science and technology, or in ways that problematize the established value systems involved in the production of knowledge and technologies –e.g. fostering the creation of open science, DIY design and commons-based p2p projects, citizen science and maker communities, feminist and environmentalist technoscience projects, and many other platforms seeking to create alternatives to public/private technoscientific arrangements-.

Emerging science and technology practices show how public and private actors are being re-assembled along routes that do not follow once established divides: science and technology are increasingly produced by private not-for-profit actors, such as CSOs, patient organizations and new citizens’ collectives, whilst traditional public institutions once entrusted with the mission of ‘producing’ science and technology for the common good, like universities and research centers, are being transformed into for-profit organizations subjected to productivity bonus, austerity measures and new public management accounting principles. These emerging and consolidating phenomena destabilise and re-signify existing public and private spaces, whilst generating new ones. In turn, new technoscientific communities and unexpected political mobilizations are ongoingly opening up, incessantly engendering other contested options, as well as forging routes to explore more democratic and hospitable futures in the times of care, housing, food, financial and environmental crisis.

The joint 2016 4S/EASST conference in Barcelona will be an opportunity to share reflections, ideas, findings and projects on a variety of aspects characterizing these alternative ways to do science and technology: (a) such as the fact that, for instance, all of these transformations usually take place in blurred everyday spaces and not in those enclosed established spaces for science and technology development, such as laboratories or industrial R&D departments; (b) or, in a similar way, the fact that research and innovation processes are increasingly organised in networked, horizontal assemblages where the traditional hierarchies in science are put into question and where science and technology are being co-produced by different actors in different, sometimes antagonistic, ways; (c) and, finally, the fact that traditional boundaries between the public and the private are no longer confined to state and for-profit actors, care practices taking a preeminent presence in most of these everyday situations."

Photo Credit: Jan Jernmark