The Biopolitics of Global Health after COVID-19

Datum
13. Dezem­ber – 15. Dezem­ber 2024 

New Del­hi-based workshop

“The Biopol­i­tics of Glob­al Health after COVID-19”
Decem­ber 13,14, and 15th, 2024
New Delhi

Shiv Nadar and Cor­nell Uni­ver­si­ty are excit­ed to invite doc­tor­al stu­dents to par­tic­i­pate in our upcom­ing work­shop in New Del­hi, India, explor­ing “The Biopol­i­tics of Glob­al Health after COVID-19”.

 

Call for Papers: “The Biopol­i­tics of Glob­al Health after COVID-19”

 Doc­tor­al stu­dents from around the globe are wel­come to sub­mit a 500-word abstract respond­ing to one of two themes, as explained below, before the dead­line of the 31^st of August 2024.

 The Work­shop

 The COVID-19 pan­dem­ic threw tak­en-for-grant­ed notions into (tem­po­rary) dis­ar­ray; reter­ri­to­ri­al­iz­ing imag­i­na­tions of “glob­al” health, sharp­en­ing neo­colo­nial rela­tions and divides, trans­form­ing hemi­spher­ic vul­ner­a­bil­i­ties and recon­fig­ur­ing the gov­er­nance of ill­ness and health. At the same time, one year after the WHO stopped con­sid­er­ing COVID-19 a glob­al health emer­gency, the longer-term effects of the event of the pan­dem­ic have not yet ful­ly been account­ed for.

Our New Del­hi-based work­shop, tak­ing place in-per­son on Decem­ber 13,14, and 15th, 2024, will be a cross-cul­tur­al and trans­dis­ci­pli­nary lab­o­ra­to­ry of think­ing about where the pan­dem­ic has left us and what could be future vec­tors of con­cern. A dou­ble foun­da­tion grounds the over­all project – biopo­lit­i­cal approach­es and locat­ed anthro­po­log­i­cal work. Few con­cepts gained as much trac­tion in reflect­ing on the pan­dem­ic as “biopol­i­tics”, as the rela­tions between “life” and “pol­i­tics” were rapid­ly recon­fig­ured in the wake of emer­gency mea­sures the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic insti­gat­ed. At the same time, “biopol­i­tics” soon became a con­tentious con­cept, divid­ing schol­ars in var­i­ous ways across the polit­i­cal spec­trum in the (post-)pandemic glob­al health are­na. The chal­lenges were many, includ­ing but not lim­it­ed to under­stand­ing immu­ni­ties anew and rethink­ing gov­er­nance under crises. Anthro­po­log­i­cal efforts across the world revised con­cepts such as care, social infra­struc­tures, and community.

Through a biopo­lit­i­cal frame­work in con­ver­sa­tion with anthro­po­log­i­cal and soci­o­log­i­cal per­spec­tives, this work­shop will enable a much-need­ed con­ver­sa­tion between philo­soph­i­cal inter­ven­tions and empir­i­cal research. Rather than smooth­ing over the fault lines that appeared in biopo­lit­i­cal think­ing and among anthro­po­log­i­cal delib­er­a­tions in par­tic­u­lar geo­gra­phies and ecolo­gies dur­ing and post-COVID-19, we want to take these rup­tures as a fer­tile start­ing point for a renewed, col­lab­o­ra­tive con­ver­sa­tion, inves­ti­gat­ing poten­tial­ly changed per­cep­tions of ill­ness, health, sci­ence, soci­ety and ethics.

The work­shop intends to assem­ble schol­ars from across the human­i­ties and social sci­ences to rethink the notion of biopol­i­tics from the ruins of glob­al health in the post-pan­dem­ic era. Engag­ing researchers from around the globe, we intend to inves­ti­gate how the pan­dem­ic has recast under­stand­ing of the gov­er­nance of health and pop­u­la­tions in the glob­al south and north.

Par­tic­i­pat­ing stu­dents are invit­ed to engage in dis­cus­sions with peers work­ing on post-pan­dem­ic biopol­i­tics and glob­al health, as well as with the work­shops’ round­table pan­el mem­bers, who will pro­vide reflec­tions and ques­tions on their work – offer­ing stu­dents an oppor­tu­ni­ty to con­nect with lead­ing inter­na­tion­al schol­ars on biopol­i­tics and glob­al health.

 The Work­shops Themes

 We invite respons­es focus­ing on two themes, enabling a com­par­a­tive analy­sis of pan­dem­ic real­i­ties to emerge.

Theme 1: “Local real­i­ties of the (post-)pandemic landscape”

On the first day of the work­shop, we will zoom in on sit­u­at­ed con­fig­u­ra­tions of health, ill­ness and gov­er­nance. We are par­tic­u­lar­ly inter­est­ed in con­tri­bu­tions that engage with the pandemic’s impact on care infra­struc­tures and insti­tu­tions, as well as social respon­sive­ness. Con­tri­bu­tions to this theme may be ethno­graph­ic or focus on con­text-spe­cif­ic nar­ra­tives, events, spaces or expe­ri­ences. The aim here is to pro­vide snap­shots of (post-)pandemic life.

Sub­mis­sions to this theme may engage with one or sev­er­al of the fol­low­ing questions:

1. How has the pan­dem­ic recon­fig­ured rela­tions of care and gov­er­nance between doc­tors and patients, insti­tu­tions and sub­jects; and among neigh­bors and citizens?
2. How can we under­stand, crit­i­cize and/or work with nov­el modes of sur­veil­lance, forms of cit­i­zen­ship, and pop­u­la­tion groups emerg­ing through the event of the pandemic?
3. How can we reflect on the spe­cif­ic tem­po­ral­i­ties brought about by the pan­dem­ic and after, includ­ing the blur­ring of the notions of cri­sis and chronic­i­ty; aging, the end of life, death and dying; and the expe­ri­ence of the everyday?

Theme 2: “The (post-)pandemic biopol­i­tics of glob­al health”

On the sec­ond day of the work­shop, we will reflect on the biopol­i­tics of post-pan­dem­ic glob­al health with a focus on the con­cep­tu­al or the­o­ret­i­cal plane. Here, we are keen to receive con­tri­bu­tions tak­ing a dis­tinct­ly philo­soph­i­cal and ana­lyt­i­cal approach, pro­vid­ing con­cep­tu­al reflec­tions on top­ics such as the social, care, pow­er, ter­ri­to­ri­al­iza­tions, pop­u­la­tions, and cit­i­zen­ship. These reflec­tions will fur­ther a com­par­a­tive dis­cus­sion, explor­ing the bioso­cial forms of life emerg­ing dur­ing and after the pandemic.

Sub­mis­sions for this sec­ond theme may respond to the fol­low­ing ques­tions or relat­ed themes:

1. „What does ‚glob­al’ mean, specif­i­cal­ly in the con­text of ‚glob­al health,’ when con­sid­er­ing the dif­fer­ent impacts at both ter­ri­to­r­i­al and local lev­els dur­ing and after the pandemic?
2. How, if at all, has the pan­dem­ic recon­fig­ured the domain of the social and the bound­aries of pop­u­la­tion groups; in oth­er words, trans­formed the object of biopolitics?
3. What nov­el or renewed dimen­sions of liv­ing and dying, and affil­i­at­ed forms of social and gov­er­nance infra­struc­tures, have emerged dur­ing and after the pandemic?

Sub­mis­sion guidelines:

Inter­est­ed stu­dents are invit­ed to sub­mit an abstract (max. 500 words) before the 31^st of August 2024.

Sub­mis­sions must clear­ly indi­cate which theme they are respond­ing to. Stu­dents from dif­fer­ent back­grounds are encour­aged to respond to any of the two themes regard­less of their dis­ci­pli­nary training.

We will let par­tic­i­pants know about our deci­sion by the 20^th of Sep­tem­ber 2024. 

Queries about the work­shop or the sub­mis­sion process may be sent to:

escavanblarikom@gmail.com

Sub­mis­sion may be sent to:

escavanblarikom@gmail.com; tcc9@cornell.edu; yasmeen.arif@snu.edu.in

 

Eli­gi­bil­i­ty and audience

Doc­tor­al stu­dents from across the globe work­ing in the social sci­ences and human­i­ties on relat­ed top­ics are wel­come to sub­mit abstracts. The work­shop audi­ence will con­sist of inter­na­tion­al schol­ars and non-aca­d­e­mics who work in fields relat­ed to the biopol­i­tics of glob­al health post-COVID-19.

The first day (13^th of Dec) will be a pub­lic event at a cen­tral venue in Del­hi, din­ner is includ­ed in that event. Accom­mo­da­tion and hos­pi­tal­i­ty on cam­pus dur­ing the final two days (14–15^th of Dec) of the work­shop will be provided.

We are able to offer lim­it­ed trav­el sup­port for stu­dents trav­el­ing from out­side of India as well as with­in India. Please indi­cate in your sub­mis­sion whether you would like to be con­sid­ered for this support.

The full stu­dent’ papers will be uploaded to the wider project’s dig­i­tal repos­i­to­ry (Cor­nell eCom­mons) after the workshop.