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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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The Chernobyl Accident was the worst nuclear accident in the history of nuclear technology. It is the keystone poster-child of most fears with nuclear energy. By addressing this accident—how it happened, what went wrong, how to prevent it—the IAEA seeks to reassure the future prosperity of nuclear power.

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 The mission of the IAEA is to promote and help the development of peaceful nuclear technologies and promote safety standards as well as inspect compliance to the commitments to non-proliferation treaties. (iaea.org)

                The IAEA has worked with Iran to complete seven projects and has another nine in the works for development of nuclear power, spent fuel processing, radiopharmaceuticals, heavy water, and security projects. (en.mehrnews.com/)

                The IAEA just held a conference in Manila to assist the Philippines in determining whether or not to revive its mothballed nuclear power plant, under the larger umbrella of the future of nuclear in the Asia-Pacific. (bworldonline.com)

                The agency also responded to the Fukushima incident. During the incident, they assisted Japan by analyzing a plethora of data and sending recommendation and results of their work. Over the last 5 years, the IAEA has sent ten expert missions and will assist in decommissioning the plant. Meanwhile, the IAEA is helping with monitoring leak/contamination management and managing radioactive waste. They are furthering first response efforts by hosting drills to better train and equip first responders for nuclear disasters. (iaea.org)

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1)  “Our goal in collaborating with this project was to develop a set of anthropologically oriented case studies, drawn from a community sample (in contrast to more common clinical studies).”

2)  “We invited persons identified as suffering seizure disorders, along with their families, to tell us stories about their illness and to describe their illness experiences - to tell us about their seizures, their efforts to find effective treatment, the responses to their condition by persons in their community, and the effects of the illness on their lives.”

3)  “Data from this study provide the opportunity for addressing not only problems of medical care and public health, but for reflecting on theoretical and methodological questions central to this book as well.”

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Virtually all of the references include in their title “social”, “structural violence”, a mention of poverty or underdeveloped country/community, or gender/social-status/race. The nature of the references concur with the nature of the article and references mainly other research articles which portray some aspect of the authors’ argument. 

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                This article is an excerpt from a book which I do not have access to. The bibliography is not contained in the excerpt but bases on the supporting evidence used in the article we can infer a few things about it (see “What were the methods, tools and/or data used to produce the claims or arguments made…” above).

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The New York Times conducted over 100 Interviews over 6 months with police officers, firefighters, government workers, and witnesses.

“Those interviews were supplemented by reviews of 1,000 pages of oral histories collected by the Fire Department, 20 hours of police and fire radio transmissions and 4,000 pages of city records, and by creating a database that tracked 2,500 eyewitness reports of sightings of fire companies, individual firefighters and other rescue personnel that morning.”