SSC Virtual Seminar: Rafael Evangelista, University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil, & Rodrigo Firmino, Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (PUCPR), Brazil

Pandemic Technopolitics in the Global South

Wednesday, December 9, 2020

12:30 – 2:00 pm

*Due to the limited capacity of the online-meeting platform, we have to adopt a first-come-first-serve principle. We will send the seminar link and password to registered participants.
 
Please RSVP to Delano Aragao Vaz by Sunday, December 6, 2020.

Abstract:

Brazil has been standing out as one of the worst places on Earth to be during a global health crisis, especially for those whose struggle for basic humanitarian rights are already a routine. How does the political environment and the historic inequalities in countries like Brazil affect the ways in which public policy and technologies are framed as responses for the pandemic crisis? In this paper we aim to present the sequence of actions and omissions in the fight against sars-cov2 in Brazil, concentrating on measures based on the use of digital technologies and the sociotechnical arrangements unfolded in materialities that give shape to such measures. We will also discuss possible repercussions of the widespread adoption of surveillance technologies as a quick fix to the effects of the pandemic. Our focus is to explain how the materiality of the virus and its political as well as territorial effects are combined with digital technologies as responses (or lack of) in the fields of healthcare, education, communication and labour in the context of the Global South.

About the speakers:

Rafael Evangelista is a professor in the Graduate program in Popularization of Science and Culture at State University of Campinas (Unicamp), Brazil. He is a journalist and social scientist with a Ph.D. in Social Anthropology. He is a co-founder of the Latin American Network of Surveillance, Technology and Society Studies (Lavits) and was a visiting professor at the Surveillance Studies Centre, at Queen’s University. He is the author of the recently released ebook Beyond Machines of Loving Grace: Hacker Culture, Cybernetics and Democracy. He can be reached at rae@unicamp.br.

Rodrigo Firmino is an Associate Professor in urban management at the Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Paraná (PUCPR) in Curitiba, Brazil. He is also a founding member of LAVITS, the Latin American Network of Surveillance, Technology and Society Studies, editor in chief of URBE (www.scielo.br/urbe) and can be reached at rodrigo.firmino@pucpr.br.

Everyone welcome!