Analyze

I am a Ph.D. candidate in anthropology at the University of California, Irvine. I am working on my doctoral dissertation that explores post-disaster ecological imaginary shaped and performed through data practices in post-Fukushima Japan. My project examines how data practices of citizen radiation detection activities construct and reconfigure the understanding and experience of citizen scientists regarding post-Fukushima “Japan” as part of the ecosystem.  For further projects, I am also interested in the sociocultural role of small data in the era of big data and how small data that represent and intervene in environmental issues are intersected and interacted with big data in various domains. 

I am currently participating in the Transnational Disaster STS COVID-19 project and the COVID-19 and Data group as a subgroup of the project above. As a member of these groups, I am unraveling COVID-19 data practices and the relationships among multiple data actors such as the government, research institutions, media, and citizen scientists in Japan. I am also interested in how differently citizen data platforms have been gaining scientific and political authorities in Japan, the U.S., and South Korea during the pandemic.

I am particularly interested in these questions: 

• What do different disciplines and communities involved in COVID-19 response mean by “good data”?

• How do local, national, and global data intersect, interact, and compete with each other? 

• What is shown and what is revealed or disregarded in COVID-19 data produced about different settings (a particular city, region, or country, for example)?

• How are COVID-19 GIS data integrated with other data forms? What is the role of the GIS data in different COVID-19 settings?

• What is the role of civic data as COVID-19 information in comparison to governmental or institutional data?

• What do people expect from data within the COVID-19 pandemic? 

• How is the data circulated for COVID-19 different from data produced in another pandemic period?

I can be contacted at inahk[at]uci.edu.

                The main argument Stephen and Andrew make is that the systems for biosecurity interventions at the global level have many issues to address, solve, and improve on in regards to biosecurity, global health and emergency response, health security and modernization risks, and toward critical, reflexive knowledge. 

This article primarily argues the increased attention on gender-based violence, and subsequent attempts to alter humanitarian guidelines, hinders efforts to address sexual violence and politicizes the issues. This, in turn, creates exclusionary methodologies to address sexual assault from a humanitarian stand point, manifesting as secondary victimization, labeling of the issues as gender-specific, and preventing universal solutions. 

1) Fukushima's nuclear safe guards followed the current accepted nuclear regulations. In addition to having back-up generators and short-term batteries to support the reactors during power failure, ownership had extensive emergency plans for tsunamis. These were executed and creative solutions were utilized with necessary. This then begs the question as to how such a well-prepared facility experience massive devastation.

2) Japan is known to be a first-world nation constantly innovating and exploring new technology, with an advanced economy and high emphasis on education. Dr. Schmid refers to members of the Japanese government as "scientifically trained, technologically savvy elites." While Dr. Schmid acknowledges nuclear energy to still be a murku field, Japanese officials represent the individuals most capable of making informed, knowledgeable decisions about nuclear facilities. This only further emphasizes her assertion that a set, elite organization needs to be created to handle nuclear emergencies.

3) While several organizations exist to discuss nuclear power on an international level, there is no entity which serves as a governing body over nuclear facilities. Nuclear emergencies very quickly spread from single-nation disasters to international events. Although there are many internationally recognized policies and guidelines, there is no body to ensure these are followed. Moreover, no single nation or organization at the present time has the fiscal capabilities or specialized knowledge to aid during nuclear disasters. 

This film, I feel, best addresses those trying to understand the broader social impacts of a disease which can include government officials and policy makers, first responders, emergency personal and more.

At this time, the group does not appear to have drawn any significant research nor produced any. I would be intrigued to see if medical personnel (such as emergency medicine residents doing their research fellowships) would have any interest in the group, their call volume, and patient outcomes.

When administering healthcare or combating epidemics, there's often an unaddressed social factor. Far more often, the focus remains on the scientific and biological aspects of the disease without delving into the social circumstances surrounding its prevalence. Healthcare typically narrows the scope to just medical intervention, instead of looking at the overarching conditions. Farmer and his colleagues give several examples of successful bio-social interventions; these methods allow physicians and healthcare workers to successfully treat patients in all aspects of the disease. Moreover, they contend that treating epidemics in this way helps to prevent the manifestation of social inequalities in healthcare.

Emergency response is not the focal point of this article; instead preventing future disasters by investigating and making necessary regulations or improvements.

The authors are Stephen Collier, PhD and Andrew Lakoff, PhD. Both hold associate professor positions-- the former at New University in NYC and the latter at USC Dornsife. Lakoff's research and publications seem to focus primarily on public health, global medicine, and medical anthropology. Collier, conversely, seems to primarily work on projects pertaining to government structure and its effects on human life. These include publications on economics, environment, historical, and biopolitics. 

This book which the article is from received a positive review from Metapsychology. (http://metapsychology.mentalhelp.net/poc/view_doc.php?type=book&id=6430)

Another well recived review was done by Dr. Duncan Wilson on the Centre for Medical Humanities website. (http://centreformedicalhumanities.org/humanitarian-reason-a-moral-history-of-the-present-reviewed-by-dr-duncan-wilson/)