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Morgan: What insights from critical theorizing about place can inform current efforts to understand and respond to the COVID-19

alli.morgan
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I've found myself returning to thinking about/around/within interstitial spaces of care, particularly within hospital settings, interested in how viral activity unsettles the ideas we have around space and boundaries, both biological and infrastructural. In COVID-19 pathology and response, the inbetween, the interstitial, become sites challenge and possibility. With COVID-19, we see an acknowledgment of once forgotten spaces quite obviously, with hospital atria and hallways being reconfigured into patient care spaces, makeshift morgues established in refrigerated trucks, and hospitals spilling out into neighboring streets and parks. More than ever, we see how hospitals are simultaneously bounded and unbounded--the most stable and unstable sites for care. Along this line of thought, what might thinking through hospitals as heterotopia of crisis and deviation afford?

Foucault outlines six principles for heterotopic spaces

The heterotopia is capable of juxtaposing in a single real place several spaces, several sites that are in themselves incompatible

Heterotopias are most often linked to slices in time—which is to say that they open onto what might be termed, for the sake of symmetry, heterochronies. The heterotopia begins to function at full capacity when men arrive at a sort of absolute break with their traditional time. This situation shows us that the cemetery is indeed a highly heterotopic place since, for the individual, the cemetery begins with this strange heterochrony, the loss of life, and with this quasi-eternity in which her permanent lot is dissolution and disappearance.

Heterotopias always presuppose a system of opening and closing that both isolates them and makes them penetrable. In general, the heterotopic site is not freely accessible like a public place. Either the entry is compulsory, as in the case of entering a barracks or a prison, or else the individual has to submit to rites and purifications.

Morgan: Where are you situated as COVID-19 plays out? What backstories shape your engagement with COVID-19? How can you be conta

alli.morgan
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I'm currently based in Troy, NY where I recently completed a PhD in Science and Technology Studies.  I'll soon be living in NYC to attend medical school. I can be reached at amorgan14[at]gmail[dot]com

I've long been interested in the disaster of routine medical care in the U.S. healthcare system. As far as COVID-19 is concerned, I'm particularly interested in how the long-term health impacts of intensive care are conceptualized and communicated (including Post Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS)) and the tensions between acute and chronic illness, broadly. 

How is the aftermath of COVID-19 crisis being imagined in different settings? How is this shaping beliefs, practices, and policies?

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harrison.leinweber
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UN - potentially caused the cholera outbreak, organized/managing response to the cholera outbreak without acknowledging responsibility for it

Pedro Medrano - UN coordinator for the response in Haiti

USAID - donor of approximately $1.5 billion since earthquake, uses international contractors to rebuild Haiti

Health Ministry - part of the Haitian govt. that manages country health and vaccinations

Ban Ki-moon - won't acknowledge possible UN role in creating cholera outbreak, UN Secretary-General

Haitian Government - currently undergoing disruption due to a  change in terms of its Senators and disagreements between parties

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harrison.leinweber
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Users can voice interest in annotating or translating works to teach3eleven [at] gmail.com. The website operators maintain a listing of works that they would like annotated. Users can also share annotations via twitter, facebook, tumbler, google+, and email. Users are also able to comment on the articles directly on the website and can reply to eachothers comments for discussion there as well.

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harrison.leinweber
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It was difficult to figure where this article had been referenced or discussed. It was included in a volume of History and Technology, so it would have been distributed along with the rest of the articles in the book. On "researchgate.net" it did not list anyone who had cited it, so my assumption is that it is not heavily referred to outside of this class.

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harrison.leinweber
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The authors support their argument by referencing a study that showed that race was associated with how quickly one received therapeutics. They also referenced that PIH was able to help in Haiti by introducing a model of care in which the patients chose someone to assist them by delivering drugs and supportive care in their home. This person would live nearby and was seen by some as a very effective way to remove barriers to care for AIDS and other chronic diseases in impoverished environments. They also say by removing issues like access to clean water that impoverished areas see, MTCT rates of HIV decreased.

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harrison.leinweber
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MSF uses previous sucesses with under their way of providing care to support their misson and future growth. MSF has been active in more than 60 countries providing aid where its needed most. Their continued success of delivering aid and further treatment provides enormouse support.