Some notes about Epidemics, Future and Time

How is the global time? does it exists? It would be defined in those papers.

The global time is not an ubiquitous, univerisal, or almighty time, but a time of greater scale than the individual level, beyond the scale of you and me. It is a terrestrial time, mediated and supported by technologies that "track" both epidemics and other factors like earthquakes, climate change, etc.

What relationship would have to aión time, kairos and chronos in the Deleuze theory??

Global Time is a time linked to action; it is a global time, which is intended to represent (provide maps and graphics). It is a time we try to capture with the eye, a time trapped because the space set its limits (in a display, the limit of what you can see).

It is a time turned image, that allows us to see all the same, it homogenizes. It is a translation ANT terms.

What interest does analyze / study scenarios in this kind of image-of-future-time?

Time and the future are elements that are always on scenarios. In the new scenarios based on epidemics, visuality is very important.

Dichotomy Strategy-tactic: we could ask to search within scenarios a third way between these two, or between planification and chaos ... it could be area of indistinction given by Agamben.

Scenarios are a spectacle. And the more spectacular, the better they are. And a very important element within this spectacle is the image. The image is equated with spectacle, not scenario. If you see a work where everything looks well-defined, you have a representation, a categorization. The fact that everything is mixed and is a mess, is what makes it a chaos.

We must not equip scenario to spectacle, but there are moments of indistinction where all scales merge and create time-spectacle moments mediated by images.

Photo Credit: Surian Soosay

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

Report about the first AIBR congress

On July 7 we attended the first international conference held by AIBR anthropology: "Human beings: cultures, origins and destiny." The congress was held in the Autonomous University of Madrid, in the town of Cantoblanco and there we could listen different professionals from several fields, in addition to anthropology.

Our group presented two papers: "How can we imagine the scenarios ?, Ebola epidemics." And "Biosafety and speed. Acceleration operators on the Ebola epidemics", both of them were well received by the audience .

In them, we try to reflect the work done during this year of research and also present our group.

It was amazing how these different disciplines (social psychology, sociology, anthropology) can reach woven between them, forming an holistic and hegemonic whole that  allows us to have a broader view of the social diversity.

The Congress attracted more than 800 people from different countries and more than 100 thematic panels. To POBICS it was a real pleasure to share place with different themes and research covering the social fabric and thus learn a lot thanks to the different views we could take both in the panels and in the debates or the contributions that members of Congress hade made about our presentations.

In this vein, we can highlight some of the tables in which we participate by our thematic affinity: Relevance of traditional medicine and cultural health care, Casada Patricia G. Garcia; Bankruptcy and paradoxes of medical-preventive speech in blood storage umbilical cord, P. Santoro; or the Participation in the definition of future health care of A. Toledo, for instance.

The experience was pleasant and the conference included an excellent organization and logistical assistance, carried out by AIBR during these days. they did not miss any detail, in addition to the friendliness of the volunteers, participants of Congress and the association itself. Furthermore, we enjoyed a welcome cocktail from a busy route through the capital. The finale took him to party in the landmark botanical garden at the Complutense University of Madrid.

This Congress has allowed to us to observe the displayed map of the rich plurality of human beings and of the various research groups working in other parts of the peninsula or abroad, entering a little more in the forms of "doing" and their respective points of view.

From POBICS, we want to thank to AIBR for the organization and for the opportunity given to us to be able to expose our work even without not being part of the anthropology strictly.

This post would not be complete without thanking the two congressmen who presented the panel with us: Ana Toledo for its revitalization on the table and Serena Triuzzi for the technological assistance.

We want to each of the speakers in the round of questions and their suggestions. We finished the course with the latter activity and a very good taste. We hope the next Congress eagerly look forward to presenting our new jobs. 

Until then, networks will help us to close the gap, to share our respective knowledge and keep in touch.

Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful 

citizens can change the world. 

Indeed, those are the only thing that ever has.

-M. Mead.-

Photo Credit: Pedro, the member of our staff that came to the Congress.

Summer is coming! New papers and work till fall

After a little break, we are here again in order to expose some points about the work and the research lines we will deploy this summer:

In the first place, we have planned to write three new drafts in order to be sent this fall. Although the three ones have a "central core" around biosecurity, biorrisk and ebola, we have stablished three different topics:

• For the first one, we want to wide the idea we sent to Nómadas Journal, where we talked about State of Emergency, Scenarios, and a new kind of bio-injuction (in contrast to Agamben and his Homo Sacer). The main idea is to affirm we are in a new time where Scenarios in biosecurity (as a new step in the preparedness logic of government) are the place where bios is defined, neither by politics neither law; but by techno-scientific knowledge.
• In the second one, we want to make a deep study about some "apps" like HealthMap in order to gather information about a new kind of "Early Warning Systems 2.0". The main feature of this new technologies, is the possibility of reporting and alerting by a layperson when he or she watches a strange person bleeding in the street, or if a friend has odds symptoms after a trip around Africa. We also want to make an ethnography with this app and finally, to extract the main conclussions about how a new kind of biosurveillance is being shaped.
• About the third one, we want to explain the "acceleration operators" idea once and for all. This last paper is the less-consolidated, but we have wrote a scheme with the key hypothesis that ebola is a path to create/articulate different scales (it is multiscalar). Speed is the characteristic of this path, but not from the biological component but a semiotic-component material.

In the other hand, we are pending about the achievement of a FPU grant by the Spanish Government for one of our students, and we want to collaborate in the next year congress about Social Studies of the Science and Technology, that will be held in Barcelona. Furthermore, we the new fund about our project, we want to make some new interviews with epidemiologist and other experts in the bios. Finally, we also want to make some "gatherings" with experts and lay people in order to close the expert knowledge to the society.

Photo Credit: Flickr, user Steve Hanna