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AK COVID-Development Studies Intersections

Aalok Khandekar

I am currently in the process of transitioning my M.A. level course on Science, Technology, and Development with 11 students to virtual instruction. One of my interests in engaging with COVID-19 is to examine how it (should) informs development ideologies and practices. How should students of development studies retool -- conceptually, methodologically, practically -- in wake of the pandemic?

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Zackery.White

Katrina, being that astronomical disaster that it was, has a response factor on a whole new level. The article touches on the response both immediately after and in a longer term context. It touches upon the aid provided by relief agencies throughout and the difficulties faced by those organizations due to scarcity and over demand of recourses.

 

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Zackery.White

“The legacy of Chernobyl has been used as a means of signaling Ukraine's domestic and international legitimacy and staking territorial claims; and as a venue of governance and state building, social welfare, and corruption.”

"Citizens, have come to depend on obtainable technologies and legal procedures to gain political regongition and admission to some form of welfare inclusion."

"She told me that Ukrainians were inflating their numbers of exposed persons, that their so-called invalids "didn't want cover." She saw the illnesses of this group as a "struggle for power and mater sources related to the disaster." 

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Zackery.White

"Does our clinical practice acknowledge what we already know—namely, that social and environmental forces will limit the effectiveness of our treatments?"

"This means working at multiple levels, from “distal” interventions—performed late in the process, when patients are already sick—to “proximal” interventions—trying to prevent illness through efforts such as vaccination or improved water and housing quality."

"Yet risk has never been determined solely by individual behavior: susceptibility to infection and poor outcomes is aggravated by social factors such as poverty, gender inequality, and racism."

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Zackery.White

This group works in varying social ecologies therefore requiring it to be very flexible and prepared for the any possible social ecology it may encounter. It can range from sparse medical facilities in Chad in which they have to set up working clinics and shelter for individuals to war-stricken Yemen in which Safe health locations are key to adequate healthcare.