New paper in process: Ebola and images

After our last paper delivery last december, we have start another project in order to write a new paper, titled: "Ebola, experts and population.  A graphic study about the Spanish case". Although it is still a draft paper, we want to share with you some abstract ideas in order to discuss them:

"Two years ago, ebola outbreak appeared as a real threat to Europe due to its closeness to Africa (and particularly in Spain with the nurse-infection controversy), the place where ebola is endemic. In that moment, it emerged several information (news on TV, newspapers, Internet, European Governments…) with a common and “invisible” element: images surrounding this virus. In this paper, we aim to analyse the role that these images performed on the enactment of ebola pandemics. We set out these images are a new kind of scenario in which the biological and legal expertise are undifferentiated, but with which lay people is affected. In order to unfold our arguments, we will show some samples about our study case, based on a) focus groups with lay-people, and b) images gathered and analysed from diverse ebola-related material."

As always, when the paper is finished, we will upload to academia.edu, so you will check it deeply. Until then, we want your discussions about this first ideas!

Photo Credit: CDC Global

Our proposal to the CEHIC congress: The Epidemiological Factor

As we post last week, the "Centre d'Historia de la Ciència" will hold a meeting next June and July. Issues and topics are related with historigrapy, History and Cience. POBICS has sent a communication, and we are waiting for acceptance. Here a little part of it:

Title: The epidemiological factor: towards a historic genealogy of the link between medicine and politics in Europe from the 18th to the 21st century.

From the beginning of our civilization, infectious and contagious diseases have forced one to think not only of solutions from an individual and medical-health point of view, but also, and urgently, from a political level that involves a territory and population that must be managed. In this sense, epidemiology constitutes a strategic dimension to analyze the complex relationships established between scientific conduct and the political management of a territory. With this aim, we will provide a short historic genealogy of the links established between medicine and politics in European societies since the 18th century. From this, we should be able to see a movement from the concepts of healthiness/unhealthiness common to the “public hygiene” managed by the 19th century nation-state, towards the imperative of public health operating with the “global health” promoted by our current global institutions.

So, this is the kind of stuff we will explain and unfold. When we receive some news about managers, we will post it. Until then, we will continue researching about epidemics in the XXI century (remember our book is about to be released!), remember you can come to our next seminary, this tuesday at 12:00 in order to talk about visual anthropology (Autonomous University of Barcelona, Social Psychology Department). 

If you are gonna to participate in this meeting, just tell us. We are pleased to know your works and ideas!

See you soon!

Photo Credit: Mark Turnauckas

II International Anthropology AIBR Congress

Next September, AIBR will hold the second congress about Anthropology. POBICS was in the first one, and we will repeat this year (here a report about our first experience!). We offer more info. about their website: 

Building on the success of its first edition, the 2nd AIBR International Conference of Anthropology brings together anthropologists from different parts of the world under the theme "Identity: Bridges, Thresholds, and Barriers." Since the beginnings of our discipline, we have reflected upon the categories, the continuities and discontinuities of being human. Therefore, to what extent are we "inventing" identity? If we have traditionally drawn a line between identity and alterity, have these essential concepts become the discipline’s very barriers? At one level, thinking about who we are requires to discriminate, to define and to separate. At another level it requires to incorporate, to relate, to entangle. These are the vectors by which the idea of identity is "good to think" and to be thought about, to discuss, and to provoke the anthropological debate that we will engage in at this conference.

The second edition of this conference will be jointly organized by AIBR (Network of Iberoamerican Anthropologists), GRECS (Research Group on Control and Social Exclusion), and the Department of Cultural Anthropology and History of America and Africa in the University of Barcelona, during 6-9 September 2016 in the beautiful city of Barcelona (Catalonia, Spain).

The theme for this year welcomes a large number of proposals and anthropologists from all subfields of the discipline. The conference aims to create a space that combines traditional forms of dissemination of knowledge—papers, posters, keynote addresses—with a wide variety of formats to inspire discussion and debate—roundtables, documentary films, and book presentations. 

Photo Credit: AIBR webpage

Meeting of the European Society for the History of Human Sciences

Our colleagues from the #CEHIC // #ESHHS will hold a Congress next June-July. POBICS will be there (we will post about our contribution soon).

Here more info. from their website:

FIRST CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

ESHHS and CHEIRON invite submissions to their joint conference to be held from June 27 to July 1, 2016, at the Centre for History of Science (CEHIC), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona.

Sessions, papers, workshops, round-tables and posters may deal with any aspect of the history of the human, behavioural or social sciences. However, this year’s conference will devote particular interest in topics such as:

–    historiography
–    history and philosophy of science
–    popularization of science and the role of experts in modern society
–    the circulation of science and technology in the European periphery

Submissions: must be received by January 15, 2016. Please send your proposal electronically as attachment in MSWord (.doc/.docx) to the three members of the programme committee:

–    Ingrid Farreras (farreras@hood.edu)
–    Sharman Levinson (slevinson.eshhs@gmail.com)
–    Annette Mülberger (annette.mulberger@uab.cat)

Only original papers should be sent. Please indicate the submission type (session, paper, poster, workshop or round-table proposal). Any submission must include the name, email, and institutional address of the author.

Papers: send a 500-600 word abstract in English plus short bibliography. In case your communication will be in another language, please inform the committee in order to assist in planning linguistic support, if necessary.

Posters: send a 300 word abstract.

Session, workshop or round-table: send a 500-600 word rationale of the event (plus short bibliography) as well as a short abstract for each paper or intervention.

Notification of acceptance will be sent by February 29, 2016.

A limited number of travel stipends will be available to students or scholars who present a paper or a poster and need economic support. Please indicate along with your submission if you wish to be considered for this arrangement. For updates on the conference, check any of the following websites www.eshhs.eu, www.uakron.edu/cheiron/ or www.cehic.es.

Organization: Annette Mülberger, Mònica Balltondre, Mariagrazia Proietto, Thomas Sturm, Jorge Molero, Carlos Tabernero, Oscar Montero Pich, Sergi Mora, Lara Scaglia, Sónia Recuerda, Vanessa Márquez, Patricia Torres, Aina Elias y Arthur Arruda Leal Ferreira. E-mail:eshhs2016@gmail.com

The local organizing committee welcomes you to Barcelona!

Photo Credit: CEHIC webpage

1st Seminary about Images: A first approach

Yesterday, POBICS held the first meeting about some image's papers and books. It was a first approach because next week we will hold another gathering in order to carry out a deeply discussion. 

In this first meeting, we several extracts from three books: 1) "De la Investigación Audiovisual", by M. Jesús Buxó; 2) "Compendio de Fotografía para Uso de Sociólogos", by Sylvain Maresca and Michaël Meyer; and 3) "La Antropología Visual", by Ana Martínez Pérez. 

We made a joint reading about the threebooks, highlighting some keypoints:

-Images as scenario

-Images as a "affective" action, and not a comunication function.

-Images and mediation (here and here) concept in ANT.

-Images and ebola.

Comments and ideas were intermingled for all the questions, so we offer a joint remark about the seminary:

We can't consider images within the classical Jakobson theory. Indeed, images have its own meaning without textual or discursive process. As Deleuze says, we are affected by images, and they "enter" (or cofunction) with our personal universe of meanings. We capture some ideas and we translate it from a indistincton zone (similar to the Agamben conception but upgraded with our own meaning). This indistincton is shaped by the image and us, and from it emerges a new knowledge or affection. And that is the scenario idea we manage.

In this sense, images are not a classical (inter)mediator quasi-objects, but a more complex issue. To think images as a ubiquitous stuff that are connected with some other elements in concrete moments is not enough. However, we can say that a image was a mediator after we analyse them, that is, in a second moment (and not previously). Then, an ebola image has acted as mediator if we can describe and go over the network that enacts (or "make sense") to that ebola image; but not before it occurs.

Photo Credit: lettawren

Georg Simmel: View of life

Yesterday, we held our first 2016 POBICS seminary. As we announced in our webpage, in this case we talk about the last book of Georg Simmel, "View of Life: Four Metaphysical Essays". We offer now some keypoints about our meetings:

-Currently, life runaways to past and to future, that is, the break or the overflow of the limits. And that is what is called "trascendence". 

-There are also two importan concepts. Life is alwaws "more life" and "more than life":

Is more life not for quantity, but life is the movement in whatever absolute measure. Life produce things meanwhile it exists, and those things are alive. And that is because physiological self-preservation is a new continuous production.

But life is also "more than life" because our representations and knowledge, values and judgments, and objective understanding, are beyond the creative life. Life is more life that that life which fits in the form. Life leaves from herself. Life is more than the life that at any moment is assigned.

-On the other hand, there is a key difference between Simmel and Oriental Philosophy: In the second one, life consists in enjoy the limits and stay in the present. In Simmel, life is the contrary: Overflow the limits, even though both Simmel and Oriental Philosophy uses similar concepts (flow, moving...).

-What is in life? Worlds or realms with meaning (art, science, religion...). All those worlds are historical and and they are differentiated from each other.

-Another important concept is the continuity and quality/quantity idea. Simmel wants to break de binomial with de "quantum" concept.

-Finally, Simmel is related in some aspects with the pragmatism/radical empirism idea: Reality is in the whole we perceive (James). We don't need to see the whole relationship between two objects in order to understand that relationship. And that is because to do that, is a scientifical task. Empirics is open, and each one has its own.

Photo Credit: Huffington Post

New material in our webpage

Today, we have started the 2016 course with a new meeting. We have planified next lectures, that it will be about Visual Research Methods (here a past read we made about Deleuze and Cinema). We have also talked about the task we are carrying out: Focus Groups with lay people in order to find out some points about biosecurity, biorisk, future services, and big data. 

Another important issue is the (at last!) the creation of the POBICS Academia.edu webpage. Until now, we have used profiles of our staff, but we thought it was important because we have the need of gathering the whole of papers (published) and our draft and pre-prints papers. For now, you can check it and discuss them with us in this web page: POBICS academia.edu profile

In this vein, our webpage has been updated with all the links of this papers, our academia.edu profile and new content. You can check it here: POBICS web. Remember you can subscribe to our web in the main page, and also you can read our blog there. We are publishing 2-3 posts every week, and we are pleased to invite some researchers in order to exchange ideas and to write in our blog. 

So, if you are interested, share it and let us know what's your opinion!

Photo Credit: Simon Booth-Lucking