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out for three years with several documental materials, interviews and focus groups; we point out that biopolitics is an outdated concept for the events of the beginning of the 21^st Century and we put forward syndromic observation as a new control dispositif not for control, but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

Ebola, images and DA analysis. Our last report

Seizing we are in Easter, we want to offer the report about our last seminary. In this case, wefor our research: a master' tesis about ebola, images and Discourse Analysis. Here you go:

discussed about a very interesting topic

Public health has become into a national security matter: what to do with the first one, now has to do with the latter.

"Viral forest": the monster tree from Africa that sends us occasionally diseases from animals (monkeys, bats, etc ...).

Global Health should move towards a system of global surveillance. (it remind us to Caduff): Each failed epidemic does not mean you have to rethink the parameters from which we think, but it means we have to improve these systems.

Distinction between: 1) Global health as development and 2) Global Health as a global health security. 

What do we mean by global? In Global Health, biopolitics and geopolitics come together. The conception we manage is important in order to understand what is exactly our topic.

From what mediations occurs the shift between the local to the global? Ebola is described 1) in different scales (viral, viral forest, forest-city relationship, etc ...) 2) how we move from one scale to another, and 3) by or from what translations this is possible.

In ANT, the global sense only is conceptualized by operators that upgrade or "enact" the global in a concrete regime and in a concrete sense. Ebola, for example, is a way to enact global, through public agencies, private sector, philanthropic organizations, academic institutions, health institutions, etc.

An effective response would require ebola "Staff, Stuff, Space and Systems". Interesting sentence.

Global health does not look (or at least not today) humanitarian aid, but the security. (interesting idea for a paper); or a derivative: in the first part of the 2015 Global Health, safety was sought, to make investments, but now it is looking for safety within, by the threat of contagion we shift to a global security, and any more for a Global Health.

Another interesting concept appeared in this document is the "Biological turn".

Finally, the name of the master' dissertation was: Ebola Exceptionalism: On the Intersecting Political and Health Geographies of the 2014-2015, and was written by Margaret M. Wilson.

Photo Credit: DonkeyHotey

Looking for new documents and information: Biosurveillance and Early Warning System

After some weeks planning new papers and the directions for upcoming researches, now we are focused on gather new empirical data in order to analyze it.

The topics we are analyzing and what we want to collect data is about Early Warning System and some biosurveillance practices carried out by general people.

In this vein, we want to achieve some documents to deepen how Early Warning Systems works, particularlly we want to know:

• What is a "general" Early Warning System

• Lay people, or citizenship, has operated as Early Warning System anytime in any outbreak?

• In an affirmative case, how did it happen?

• Where we can find information about it?

• We are very interesting in some "apps" for smartphone as HealthMap or Outbreaks Near Me. How does it works? 

Well, this is the kind of questions we have. We are consulting some webs as the WHO's gate or the CDC's website, but we would be happier if someone could give us some papers, protocols or any other document which responds to this. 

Photo Credit: Flickr, user Nate Laverdure

Biovigilant citizenship

Another month, another monday I am writing a new post for the blog. In this case, I want to point out some ideas about a new paper we are clarifying, and it is about the role of citizenship within biosurveillance. 

The first we made is to build the index, and it has remained as follows:

1. Introduction: We talk about our current moment and their main events: the heightening of bio-sciences, Big-Data, DNA researches, pandemics, anthrax, ebola... and then we frame it within the preparedness logic of government: scenario-planning, biorisk, etc. We also remark some aspects of our theoretical framework: Social studies of Science and Technology, and Actor-Network Theory.

2. What is citizenship?: Starting with a brief review about the classical conception of citizenship (in Roma and Greece, the republican vision), we meander till the Marxist's conception of citizenship going through the liberal conception (with Hobbes or Marshall, for instance). 

3. New citizenships: From the beginning of the 21th Century, as many authors have pointed out (i.e Nikolas Rose or Petryna), and in part on the basis of the panorama given in the introduction, some new conceptions of citizenships have emerged. We discuss them here and we also give some key points of each one (we also talk about the biosecure citizenship of Kezia Barker for instance).

4. Biovigilant citizenship: In the fourth paragraph, we want to present our own proposal within these new categories of citizenship, the biovigilant citizenship. However, in which consists it? Well, I cannot advance so much, but our concept is constructed using the Foucault's idea of paraskeue or equipment. In this vein, we affirm the existence of some equipments that allows citizenship to become biovigilant, in the sense of watch and be watched. Is here where we present our empirical data to support our thesis.

5. Conclusions: We aim to problematize the naïf role of citizenship as a mere collaborator in the alert and detection of new outbreaks, and we conclude with the idea that this equipment becomes normal a very concrete regime of veridiction, with quite interesting implications.

So, what do you think about it? We can really talk about a new kind of citizenship, or is only a concrete and not so important feature? Do you think another term would be more interesting?

This papers will be send in May, so we have to wait until Christmas (more or less) to have it published. We will keep reporting!

Photo Credit: Flickr, user Bernard Goldbach

From institutionalized body to interspecie body. Communication in the 2nd Congress of Critical Social Psychology

Finally, the congress ended. It has been such an interesting weekend, where I could learn much about all the lecturers, know researches and collect a lot of information. I want to thank particularlly to Mari-Luz Esteban for the feedback she gave me in order to spread our vision out about the anthropological studies of ebola.

Despite I promised I was going to upload the communication I presented at the 2nd Congres of Critical Social Psychology, finally I couldn't due to some technical problems (the battery ran out in the middle of the recording). 

In order to offset this issue, I want to share an adapted version of my speech with all of you. You can see our Prezi slides here and read one abstract here, so let's start:

Hi everyone. As I am the moderator of this communication so I have to self-present. I am Enrique Baleriola, I am a PhD student in Social Pschology at this university (Autonomous University of Barcelona), led by the senior lecturer, Francisco Tirado. 

I would be satisfied if you catch only one idea or concept I want to share today. This is a new shift we think have occured in relation with the traditional concept of body by Foucault. In order to do this, I want to present this index (see slides) where we will begin talking about of some elements that constitute the background of our research. In second place, we want to talk about this new concept of body, derived or displaced from the Foucaultian conception. After this, we want to mention briefly some aspects of the traditional conception of body and its management, called "biopolitics" or "biopower". And finally, I want to expose some empirical examples about this shift in order to understand it better.

Okey, so where are us? in this slide you can see what we refer as the background from where we take off: the "9-11 attacks", the recent episoded of ebola in Africa and Spain, Chernobyl, Neoliberalism as the previous researcher, Diego, has exposed... the Big Data analysis of massive data amounts, anthrax... well, this is our point of departure. 

In second place, I want to present our proposal. The new body and its management. What is it? We have called it as the "interspecie body", and in which consists? well, as we can see in the first slide, we point out that body is no longer conceived as a clear-boundaries object, but a body that is all time in relation with other species, as this human-skin and mosquito shows. But it not only happens with the humans bodies and others animals, but also between animals: a flock  of sheeps that are spread with a virus contained in a close flock of cows; a fruit bat that bites a monkey... we can see it later, but our results are pointing in this sense. As we can see, is an interrelated body: interspecie, an unfold body, open literally (in their tissues or organs), a body where the key is the movement of the outbreak (transported by this symbiosis between species), a collective body, mediated by the techné that Agamben told us. Thus, body is mediated by technologies. Life, split in bios and zoé, is becomed bios due to a technology. The "bare life" not exists because it is a bared life. Bared by some kind of technology.

Well, so how is managed and administrated this new body? through new practices that are distinct from the classical conception of biopolitics by Foucault. We have named it as "kinepolitics" (from the greek root, kiné) because we think this new body is managed in its movement. The best example is a plane. Where people is controlled (i.e his or her fever by a heat gun) before entry to one foreign country. But as I have said, there are a lot of examples.

About the classical body in Foucault, I don't want to say so much because we don't have much time. Only some key concept: the shift from let-live/make-die to make-live/let-die in the modern time; and we want also to highlight this "closed" body, institutionalized (molded in instutitions), fold, with some clear boundaries.

Okey, we can discuss it in the questions section or at the coffee break. Let's go to the last part: some examples of this new body.

(See slides) well, the first interesting thing in this maps are the arrows. Movement is administrated because there are a (bio)risk that begins in Africa and goes to USA and Asia. We can see this arrows also in the zoonotic course of an infection. The deer is infected by a fruit bat, and the first one then, is eaten by a monkey that is in conctact with humans. So, what we can do? stablish controls in these movements as we will see now. Finally, before arrive to the documents, we can see another feature of this body. As I said, this body is literally open, showing tissues and organs, and always related with a map, a territory (regadless of what we understand by territory).

In the last place, we can read some extracts about the interspecie-body (I want to use the english documents only): 

"Ebola outbreaks among humans have been associated with direct exposure to fruit bats and mortality among other wild animals, which tend to succumb to the infection. "

"Preventing infection in communities:

Visitors and residents in EVD-affected areas face a low risk of becoming infected in the community if the following precautions are strictly followed:

• Avoid contact with symptomatic patients and their bodily fluids.

• Avoid contact with corpses and/or bodily fluids from deceased patients.

•Avoid contact with wild animals (including primates, monkeys, forest antelopes, rodents and bats), both alive and dead, and consumption of bushmeat.

• Wash hands regularly, using soap or antiseptics. "

Well, as we can see, the key concept is about avoid the contact, that is, to interrupt the interspecie-body. In all the cases, there is a symbiotic process where two kind of species or animals are in contact. For instance, in the second document, we can see some forms of try to manage this new body (we can consider it within the kinepolitics): avoid contact with sumptomatic patients, avoid contact with wild animals (without any control in their movement), wash hands, etc.

That's all, thank you so much. We can discuss it when all the researches would talk. 

Photo Credit: Flickr, user Christian Senger

New theoretical answers about scenario-planning

Along the past week, I asked in diverses forums about the question of scenario (you can check out my past posts about it here and here) but now, with concrete questions and trying to link it with the citizenship's collaborative role (as part of early warning systems). Here is the answers:

"In our practice, these scenario-driven exercises are primarily focused on finding out the strengths and weaknesses of both your team (manpower levels, training updates, etc.) and your infrastructure, equipment and supply chain (is the inventory current?, is the equipment working?, are the facilities available in an emergency?, etc). From these initial questions you can draft a simple, yet relevant scenario to test both an unforeseen outbreak as well as your current surveillance capabilities. Then you can start adding challenges to this. Realistic scenarios will start with "a day in the life" of your particular team in your facility, then something 'goes wrong' or "someone notices something out of the ordinary in his/her routine, but didn't make much of it..." that's how situations evolve from bad to worse to crises. Hope this helps."

 

Another and full answer; very insteresing and gathered in ResearchGate, say:

"I will address your questions one after the other in a new order.

Is it true that scenarios are based in imagination?

Scenario planning also implies scenario thinking or scenario analysis - so it can be implied that this is based on deep and critical thinking and imagination.

How does it work?

Well, this is how it works:

It begins with defining the objectives and scope of the pandemic

This is closely followed by defining the key drivers of the pandemic

This will be followed by the collation and analysis of relevant data. Such data include quantitative, qualitative and expert opinion, access the predictability and the impact of the key drivers and defining appropriate measures associated with the key drivers

Another stage involves developing scenario

Applying scenario

and finally refining scenario through updates

How is scenarios defined  by bio-experts?

Well, scenarios are defined by bio-experts by carefully analysing the different biological parameters and key drivers  that will be associated in predicting a pandemic.

What are the root of this concept in biosecurity and biosurveillance projects?

The significance of this concept(scenario analysis) in biosecurity and biosurveillance related project cannot be underestimated. It provides a predictive platform for scientists to know and understand ahead the major and minor impact a pandemic will have on a community or a society. 

It also helps scientists to incorporate essential bio-security measures to curb the negative impact of such pandemic.

I hope I have provided some answers to your questions."

A third expert tell us, in this sense:

"Scenarios are meant to project potential impacts (primary, secondary...) of potential threats/hazards at macro and micro (local) levels- e.g. impacts to families/communities/vulnerable people. To which practical response measures are formulated and serve as the basis for preparedness efforts (things that we have to organize today during normal times so that we can indeed effectively respond if called for). Thus, scenario-based planning can be used to test existing set of plans or to inform first stage planning. In this regard, while fiction and imagination will be applied, it must be out of experiences and good educated foresight and appreciating possibilities."

 Finally, an answer quite close to our goals:

"Scenario planning as a part of pandemic preparedness can be quite diverse, and much dependent upon who is involved, whether the scenario involves national or international cooperation, and what the ultimate goals are in terms of protecting national biosecurity, global spread, mitigation, etc.  Clearly scenario planning must involve some imagination since it is an event that has not yet happened; but it should be greatly informed by earlier situations that have occurred that may be similar.  A good example is that new pandemic influenza strategies incorporate lessons learned from the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, for which there is much recent data and analysis.  One thing that is rapidly changing the social aspects of potential pandemic emergence is the widespread use of social media, electronic communication, etc.  These things have changed radically even in the last 5 years since the H1N1 pandemic.  Social media can be very useful if properly used to communicate information and prevention and/or mitigation measures.  However, the ability of the public to discriminate between good information and erroneous information is very limited, and thus social media's widespread indiscriminate use can pose great threats to getting accurate information out and coordinating responses. For these reasons, social media must be a major part of today's scenario planning, and should be coordinated with adequate filters at all levels, from international partnerships to local community-based strategies."

To sum up all these proposals, we can say, about scenario-planning:

• The imaginational factor exists in scenario-planning, but also it's used information about past events (and this include traditional risk-management and statistics).
• Scenario-plannning is not used only in order to prepare against a threat, but also to know how is workin at present actions that are carrying out.
• The exchange in scales exists, that is to say, scenario-planning not only seeks to prepare or isolate a concrete or local outbreak, but also encompasses large-scale and total scales.
• The role of citizenship/population is important in order to manage affects, behaviors and (I guess) to enrole the as an active early warning system by including some equipment (in the Foucault sense). In few weeks, I will write a post about it because is the goal of a next paper.
• Scenario-planning is a source of information about a cocnrete situation. We need to "experience" the terror and the emergencie, not only imagine it or calculate it.

Photo Credit: Flickr, user Angus Mcdiarmid

Scenario planning in biosurveillance projects

For the current post, I want to talk about one issue we have been discussing today in our research meeting. And this is about one element of the preparedness logic of government: the scenario planning.

The source of this topic is one document we have found in the CDC website where it is exposed a scenario about an hypothetical tuberculosis contagion inside the United States. Scenario-based exercise, in words of Lakoff (2007) is a technical operation inside prepardness logic of government, and consists:

In the quest to be prepared for the eventuality of thermonuclear war, Kahn

counseled, every possibility should be pursued. “With sufficient preparation,” he wrote,

“we actually will be able to survive and recuperate if deterrence fails.”23 Kahn invented a

method for “thinking about the unthinkable” that would make such planning possible:

scenario development. Scenarios served two purposes. One was to assist in designing

role-playing games in which decision-makers would enact the lead-up to war with the

Soviet Union. In the absence of the actual experience of a nuclear standoff, these

exercises provided officials and military planners with something close to the sense of

urgency such a crisis would bring. The second use of scenarios was to force both planners

and the public to seriously face the prospect of nuclear catastrophe as something that

must be planned for in detail.

Thus, we can see scenarios as the solution for one event that we cannot know neither when nor where will emerge, as a potential pandemics. For this, traditional risk-asessment is not useful because it cannot be controlled or foreseen at the basis of past events because its configuration is not ever seen before. What we need, then, for it managing? a pre-event preparation, based in imagination:

The general problem scenario planning addressed was how to approach an

unprecedented event. Scenarios were not predictions or forecasts, but opportunities for

exercising an agile response capability. They trained leaders to deal with the

unanticipated. “Imagination,”

Our reflection is about one previous step: how is defined scenarios by bio-experts? what are the root of this concept in biosecurity and biosurveillance projects? how does it works? it is true that scenarios are based in imagination?

References:

Lakoff, Andrew. (2007). Preparing for the Next Emergency. Public Culture 19(2)247–271.

Photo Credit: Flickr, user Manuel M. Almeida

The role of citizenship as Early Warning Systems. Answers to this question.

Two post ago, I wrote about some topics we want to inquire in relation with our current research goal, that is, what would be the role of citizenship as Early Warning System, or, generally, in the biosurveillance realm. 

Through ResearchGate, two researches have contributed with their answers to this issue. Responses are quite interesting:

"Enrique,

Thanks for your excellent job of posing this question, and articulating many critical issues.  I will be following the discussion that I hope will ensue, and perhaps make some more comments of my own after seeing where the discussion goes.  It seems to me that this whole area has been inadequately defined and standardized.  I consider much of my work to be biosurveillance - looking for prevalence and distribution of pathogens in natural environments, primarily through the use of  sentinel organisms.  However, surveillance or biomonitoring (which term is best?) for vector  populations is also important.  I've attached a couple of relevant papers.  Best wishes, Bruce"

"Hi Enrique,

As you mentioned, the term ‚biosurveillance‘ is closely related to the term ‘bio-monitoring’, in which monitoring is less regular than one would expet it to be in a surveillance system. Originally, these terms were coined about 40 years ago, when environmental concerns grew because of the ever occurring industrial pollution. Standard books of the matter should give you an overview about the terms applied.

Are there tools where the citizen can contribute?

Usually, every citizen can forward his/her concern to the appropriate parties, the national or international bodies concerned with the issue. In the U.S. this is certainly the EPA.

A sentinel site is a reference site being used usually on a national base. Look at what the tropical docs say about sentinel sites for their research:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_of_Travel_Medicine

wish you all the best with your endeavor,

good luck!"

In fact, I am very interested in the International Society of Travel Medicine work, as well as the kind of stuff that the Global Oubreak Alert and Response Network (GOARN) is carrying out (I didn't know this site), and I am sure we can slide for this websites in order to know new things and to collect new material and documents. 

In any case, we need for information about it, so we hope you would like to help us with your point of view or source of information.

By our part, we are wondering if it is feasible that one role of citizenship within biosurveillance may be alert global institutions when he/she or a relative present unusual symptoms, uploading it to the web through a smartphone or pc; simply pressing a button... not only seeking help, but to act as a Early System for a potential outbreak for which is necessary take actions previously within the Preparedness logic of government.

Photo Credit: Flickr, User New York National Guard

Welcome to our webpage!

First, I want to thank everyone who yesterday participated in the question I posed in ResearchGate, I hope more people participate and help to enrich de discussion, I am sure your answers would like everybody, particularly to our research group. 

The post of today is about one issue we was talking the last week. Is about one project we had in mind since the last spring, but for several reasons, we cannot take it off till this week. This project is the construction of a webpage where we can upload our works, reflections, and thus, release our field of knowledge but everyone interested in it.

Although the website is still under construction, you can visit it here and take a look to the main sections and if you want, give us some feedback about it. His name is "Portraits of Bios in the 21th Century-POBI21" (the name is also provisional), and we want to build some forums of discussion about biosurveillance and anthropology, social implications of this realm of the science and technology...

Thumbnail of POBI21

Webpage is organized in six sections: home, about, team, documents, our researches and events. Home is only the greeting and the ways of contact with us (Facebook and Twitter will be available soon). About is the section where we present our aim and our theoretical framework. Then, in team, you can check our personal bios as well as log in to our Academia.edu profiles. The main section is documents, splitted in Publications (papers and other academic outcomes), Working Papers (what are we doing now) and Seminary Summaries (some abstracts about our open seminaries). Our researches is still under construction, but soon you will find the topics we are working and other stuff. Finally, in events, you will see the next congress, meetings, seminaries, etc. where you can find some about our work.

The website is also created in order to link other research groups interested in our topics, and to enlarge the contacts for a later collaborations with people of worldwide. 

We will be publish several events where we will participate (not necessarily organized by us) and the meetings with public assistance (as seminaries where we will read some papers or books). We will be refreshing this section periodically, so I recommend checking it regularly!

This is the webpage: Portraits of Bios in the 21th Century

Photo Credit: Personal photo

Epidemics and Biosurveillance - Some questions to answer

After the "break" of Christmas, my research group and me are collecting new material in order to publish news papers and a book named "Biopolitics and Biosecurity at the 21th Century", in partnership with a brazilian research group, head by Cleci Maraschin.

In order to do that, we have to clear up some questions that I want to share with all of you, and so, you can collaborate and we can build a discussion exchanging diverses points of view. Here are the questions:

• What is understood, exactly, by biosurveillance?

• What is understood, in terms of biosecurity and biosurveillance, by Early Warning Systems?

• From the point of view of biosurveillance, scientifics and experts, what is currently the role of citizenship? 

• There are tools, apps, guidelines, etc. whereby citizenship can collaborate or "enact" as alert system?

• Where can we find documentation about this kind of issues? 

• What  is a sentinel site or a sentinel web? and how it works?

• What is the role of Internet into this new intelligence related with detecting pandemics and acting before it occurs?

Finally, I want to share with you our webpage (still is under construction), where we will upload our materials and papers in order to shere it with all of you, thanks a lot!

Portraits of Bios in the 21th Century

Photo Credit: Flickr, user Temari 09

New Congress in February!

After few days disconnected due to an important task I carried out for the Open University of Catalonia, I come back to Anthropology of the Bios talking about the 2^nd Congress of Critical Social Psychology that will be held in Barcelona, from February 12^th to February 14^th. This congress is titled “Affect, Embodiment and Politics” (registration is still open for everyone), where my research group will expose two communications about our current line of research.

For this, the current post is about one of this communications, particularly the one I will espose, whose name is “The new Management of Biorisk and the Biopower’ shift: from the Institutionalized body to the Interspecie Body”. Although the communication will be in Spanish, you can check the Prezi’ slides I am going to use here

For this work, we will begin talking about the current situation of our society in several realms: technology, society, outbreaks… whose assemblage is so different from that pointed out by Foucault in the 80’s which he never could observer because his death. After this introduction we will present two new concepts: interspecies-body and cinepolitics (I wrote one post talking about cinepolitics). Both interspecies-body and cinepolitics are linked at the basis of this new techno-scientific panorama drawn in the first part, where when a new outbreak is emerged, management and surveillance are carried out over the movement of a plural or heterogeneous body made by the union of animals, bacteria, viruses and humans. Is so difficult cutting of the link between all of them, and is observed that peril or risk is no longer one animal (a sheep or a flock of sheep for instance) but the jump to the human or to a whole farm (cows, horses, pigs…).

The next step in our communication is to compare this conception with the Foucaultian view of body: let live-make die to make live-let die, and his conception of a close and finalized body, passing from institution (school, jail, madhouse…) to institution. To finish, we will show some examples extracted from several European documents, including images and some text (you can check it in the last slides.

What is your opinion about that? We need some people in order to discuss our research and enrich our empirical material. 

Photo Credit: Flickr, user Castgen

Global Assemblages

In the last post I wrote talking about maps and how them works in relation with biosecurity, I pointed out one concept that I want to explain better today. This is global assemblage.

Global assemblage is a concept highlighted by Collier and Ong and that is applied to several currently problems from an anthropological view. Thus, in the book titled Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems, mentioned authors and others (for instance, Paul Rabinow) talk about this conception in bioscience, right, ethics or populations.

However, what is a Global Assemblage? In Collier and Ong words:

<<Global assemblages are sites for the formation and reformation of what we will call, following Paul Rabinow, anthropological problems. They are domains in which the forms and values of individual and collective existence are problematized or at stake, in the sense that they are subject to technological, political, and ethical reflection and intervention>>

Instead we are not work exactly this concept, we are using some approximations that follows the same sense of one key feature of global assemblages, that is, the quality to de-territorialize and re-territorialize. For us, a Global Assemblage would be a kind of operator or dispositif (In the Foucaultian sense) constituted by some techno-scientific elements that can deploy their webs in a variety of social scales (within a seamless as techno-scientific-social works in the Actor Network-Theory): macro (European Union,-level, World-Health Organization-level); mezzo (States-level) and micro (citizenship-level). Thus, one of this techno-scientific element is the realm of biosecurity

What we are paying attention is in this question: how the techno-scientific network of biosecurity is being articulated in those different scales? All kind of answer will be welcomed because we do not have response yet. Nonetheless, one way of research would be understand the macro and mezzo scales because of the practices carried out at the micro level. Some apps for smartphone like HealthMap are able to see all diseases around the world in the current moment and further, registry any new if we are alerted for it. After that, the mezzo and consequently the macro level would be activated in order to check these alarms out and carry out actions in order to cut them off or prevent a major outbreak or pandemics (inside the preparedness logic).

Another possibility in order to apply the global assemblages concept to biosecurity would be to try understand how them are linked with a global vision of the world given by disease’ maps that are more and more frequents accompanying research’ texts about one new outbreak. In fact, when we look to these maps, we are observing not only global-scale events, but also the folding of little practices that biosecurity as a global-assemblage is constantly re-territorializing in local territories; adapting and keeping their global form each time.

References:

Ong, A. y Collier, S. (2005).  Global Assemblages: Technology, Politics and Ethics as Anthropological Problems. Oxford: Blackwell.

Photo Credit: Flickr, user NASA Goddar Space Flight Center

Is it approaching a new nuclear race?

After few months, I want to relaunch my blog and I though the best way was writing about the best thing I know, and although I don't know so much about it, this issue is biosecurity, biosurveillance, pandemics and society.

Thus, I've just write in a LinkedIn group answering the post Mr. Koblentz post, The United States Should Shape the Second Nuclear Age Before It’s Too Late:

"In a new report released by the Council on Foreign Relations, "Strategic Stability in the Second Nuclear Age," I describe how changes in geopolitics and technology have led to the rise of a new nuclear order. This second nuclear age is characterized by new nuclear states, new sources of uncertainty, and a new geometry of deterrence.

During the Cold War, the potential for nuclear weapons to be used was determined largely by the United States and the Soviet Union. Now, with 16,300 weapons possessed by the seven established nuclear-armed states—China, France, India, Pakistan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States—deterrence is increasingly complex. Since most of these countries face threats from a number of potential adversaries and their deterrence relationships are increasingly interconnected, changes in one state’s nuclear policy can have a cascading effect on the other states.

Though many states are downsizing their stockpiles, Asia is witnessing a nulcear buildup; Pakistan has the fastest-growing nuclear program in the world. By 2020, it could have a stockpile of fissile material that, if weaponized, could produce as many as two hundred nuclear devices. South Asia is the region “most at risk of a breakdown in strategic stability due to an explosive mixture of unresolved territorial disputes, cross-border terrorism, and growing nuclear arsenals.”

Emerging technologies such as missile defenses, cyber and antisatellite weapons, and conventional precision strike weapons pose additional risks and could potentially spur arms races and trigger crises.

The United States should work with other nuclear states to address sources of instability in the near term and establish processes for multilateral arms control efforts over the longer term. "

And this is my answer:

"It's so interesting what you say, Mr. Koblentz. But, for my point of view, the most important and the most interesting is the impplications of this likely second "Cold War" in terms of logic of war and widely, logic of society. I have read quite a lot about the change in the logic of prevention, from precaution to preparedness in USA and then in the whole West, and it would be nice to know what is the "next step" or the next shift. 

On the other hand, due to my studies, I think this next step it's not about nuclear realm, but biosecurity and biosurveillance issues, deploying this logic of preparedness by protecting the biotic."

So, what is more important, a new nuclear-scale or the recent bio-preparedness strategy? you can check what is talking about the second one in some bibliography like this:

1. Anderson, B. (2010). Preemption, precaution, preparedness: Anticipatory action and future geographies. Progress in Human Geography, 34(6), 777-798
2. Collier, S.J. (2008). Enacting Catastrophe: preparedness, insurance, budgetary rationalization. Economy and society, 37(2), 225-250.
3. Lakoff, A. (2009). Swine Flu and the Preparedness Apparatus. Keele University. Newcastle.
4. Samimian-Darash, L. (2009). A pre-event configuration for biological threats: preparedness and the constitution of biosecurity events. American Ethnologist, 36(3), 478-491.

Photo Credit: Flickr, user NIAID (http://bit.ly/1qZxBeg)