Analyze

So the main 'slowdown' of the economy as well as the 'lockdown' of people appears to come to an end. It's been three exceptional months, as for instance emphasized by altered mobility patterns. (See https://www.covid-19-mobility.org/current-mobility/) However, what do we make out of this?

I would like to propose the following argument: The global health crisis of SARS-CoV-2 triggered a new public engagement with the polluted world produced and inhabited by humans. Media reports and preliminary scientific studies showed how pollution parameters decreased significantly and people visited public parks to a previously unknown extent. A debate on healthy clean air popped up, which was further strengthened by measures to contain the pandemic. Publicly discussed scientific studies suggest a correlation between COVID vulnerability and air pollution; and through hygiene measures, the mask has become popular as an object of protection, which in many societies was previously known primarily as protection against air pollution in public spaces. A few authors even claimed that air pollution should be indentified as a pandemic as well, a non-communicable pandemic with a significant toll.

We know perfectly well that air pollution is a slow disaster that is hard to account for. Threshold limits are not enough. The unequal consequences are not well appreciated, let alone translated into sufficient action. The pandemic experiences might help cherish clean air; it could help in producing clean and healthy air as a common good.

This is just a start, but I'm thinking about doing more research on that topic. One possible approach would be to discuss the "clean air experience" cross-culturally (like we do during the calls), while analysing and drawing on public (social media/media) discussions to enact clean air as a value. In turn, this could help bring pollution prevention and accountability to the forefront.

Science-study wise, it's interesting to see that based on sensing and modelling scientists find it challenging to carve out a "Corona effect". The weather is just very unique this year. However, a new assessment by the German Aerospace Center claims to have "proven" it. In the Italian Lombardai (the North), for example, the effect boils down to 45 percent. This is the main finding of this link (which has some nice gifs, but otherwise is written in German).

Is there any ethnographic science study of how global pollution data is made and processed? Jennifer Gabrys get's pretty close with her work, plus Paul Edward's research on climate data. But there might be more to it. Doing such a study now might produce interesting insights.

I also came across a compelling clip by the Delhi based Centre for Science and Environment, where they explain current Delhi data. They show an explicit interesting in a state of zero/low-pollution, which otherwise can never be observed, as well as its consequences. https://www.cseindia.org/covid-19-lockdown-60-drop-in-air-pollution-in-…

Just to begin the discussion for this particular question: here's the Harvard study that is being cited in various newspapers on the apparantly direct link between air pollution and Covid-19 vulnerability. van Donkelaar, A., R. V. Martin, C. Li, R. T. Burnett, Regional Estimates of Chemical Composition of Fine Particulate Matter using a Combined Geoscience-Statistical Method with Information from Satellites, Models, and Monitors, Environ. Sci. Technol., doi: 10.1021/acs.est.8b06392, 2019.
See e.g. how it is picked up by the NYT. I also find it interesting to link this data with more critical race-ish reports, such as this by Vice.

So, how to draw on this to develop what kinds of ethnographic studies?

Reading lists appear to play an important role in the distribution of knowledge. They might help follow discussions, but they also make things complicated, especially when one is facing non-curated long lists. For example, I am trying to follow the daily updates provided by the The Syllabus -- especially its Anthropocene and Economy parts. I intend to read the articles (and at times listen to the podcasts) that discuss the intersection of Corona and Climate. Or at least safe the important ones to Zotero. Yet, there is a lot to digest. Many repetitions.

Are these lists a data infrastructure 'for us'? What do they mean for 'others'? Might it be helpful to share the workload of reading the updates, and invest a bit of time in some sort of curation process?

I'm staying at home these days, that is, in Erfurt, set in Eastern Germany. My commute to the Ruhr University – roughly 400 km to the west – thus has been put to a hold. I have a background in waste studies, while also becoming increasingly interested in matters of energy production. I’d like to understand how pollution affects bodies, but also how the reactions to the pandemic are changing the way pollution is discussed and experienced. You can contact me via mail: stefan.laser@rub.de

I'm particularly interested in the following questions:

How is COVID-19 impacting and intersecting with air pollution?

What data infrastructure -- in different settings, at different scales -- supports efforts to understand and respond to COVID-19?

What COVID-19 data visualizations are in circulation and to what effect?

How does COVID-19 impact the civil rights of unsheltered populations and challenge ideas of what a healthy environment is?

While emergency response is not addressed as an overarching theme, this report focuses on the nuances of mental health within emergency response. A key, but often forgotten aspect of emergency response, the report seeks to better focus the treatment and study of mental health after an emergency. The report discusses how to better study mental illness in populations who have experienced trauma, which will further enable effective treatments. It also discusses a few interventions currently shown to help mitigate PTSD, MDD, and other disorders after a disaster event.

While there are clips of various spokesmen and women for the marine corps, I would have liked to see an interview with them directly. Particularly, a female appears several times to directly meet with the survivors of Camp Lejeune and to speak at the senate hearing (she's not listed on any outside resources). She serves as the "Marine Corps Representative", and appears to be reserved at best. Her view on the former residents and the situation would be intriguing.

1) Hocas: an anglicized ottoman-Turkish word meaning "master, professor, teacher"; it evolved from "khawaja", and is an honorific title given to a teacher of the Muslim faith, particularly a sufi teacher. 

2) Tonic-clonic seizure: formerly described as "grand mal seizures", they include two sections (hence the "tonic" and "clonic"). The tonic phase includes the initial rigor and consciousness, while the clonic phase is the characteristic muscle spasms. These phases each last around 1 minute and 3 minutes, respectively.

3) Jinns: anglicized to "genie", this is the term for a supernatural creature in the Muslim faith. Many of the patients interviewed in Dr. Good's work spoke of a terrifying event prior to the onset of their epilepsy, often involving the presence of a "jinn". 

1) "It is important to note that these changes that incorporated gender-based violence into the human rights realm also brought the law to bear as a primary instrument of change and struggle. Calling this ‘governance feminism’, Janet Halley argues that this was the work of a certain group of feminists who came together in the 1990s, taking criminal law as a primary instrument of reform, and working in a top-down fashion to institute punishment for a global war against women."

2) "This approach inherently limits the mode of intervention. The mandate of humanitarianism – again, as defined by the new wave of ‘sans frontiere-ism’ exemplified by ` MSF – is not to reform or improve the kind of life one lives, only to preserve life itself. And yet gender-based violence is about the kind of life one lives. Under the rubric of human rights, freedom from gender-based violence is part of a parcel of rights that define what it means to be human in ways that include the right to be free from violence, the right to equality and the right to dignity"

3) "In MSF’s General Assembly debate, Rony Brauman, the former president of MSF, suggested that rather than descending into politics, humanitarians should make a distinction between describing what one witnesses, and qualifying it, which entails making a judgement. He asked one of the MSF Holland representatives, ‘How do you know the women were raped? Did you see it happening?’ Brauman proposed sticking close to what one sees, and letting others take it from there – he felt strongly that MSF should not have called for action. For him, and many others, humanitarianism is not about justice, politics or taking sides. The MSF Holland representative responded that there was a slippery slope between political neutrality and irresponsibility, and a fierce debate ensued"