The birth of sensory power: How a pandemic made it visible?

Isin, Engin F.; Ruppert, Evelyn

doi:10.1177/2053951720969208

Cited by 59 publications

(31 citation statements)

References 41 publications

(19 reference statements)

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“…Writing on the governance of COVID-19, Engin Isin and Evelyn Ruppert note how responses to the pandemic brought together "sovereign, disciplinary and regulatory power", as well as what they term "sensory" or bio-securitising power, long a prerogative of the modern state, but that the pandemic made all too visible for the first time in its unequal deployment. 51 Securing territories and populations has always been, in Foucauldian terms, "a matter of organizing circulation, eliminating its dangerous elements, making a division between good and bad circulation, and maximizing the good circulation by diminishing the bad". 52 In the governance and attempted regulation of pandemic risk, this became starkly evident.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Certifying Health: The Unequal Legal Geographies of COVID-19 Certificates

Alemanno

Białasiewicz

2021

Eur. j. risk regul.

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This article discusses some of the challenges posed by the introduction of COVID-19 certificates as a privileged tool for opening up mobility and access in order to restore a semblance of normality to social life. While at present there is no international consensus either on how – or why – such certificates should be used or on how they should be designed and applied, a growing number of countries have already introduced COVID-19 certificates in one form or another. Yet the scientific community as well as the World Health Organisation (WHO) have expressed caution, noting that such certificates might disproportionately discriminate against people on the basis of race, religion and socioeconomic background, as well as on the basis of age due to the sequencing of the vaccine rollout. Indeed, while the new COVID-19 certificates may appear to promise a magical solution enabling us to free up global mobility and reopen economies, they actually risk creating new borders and new forms of inequality through an exclusionary sorting and profiling mechanism that delimits “safe” from “unsafe” bodies, based on differential access to “immuno-privilege” – but also differential forms of “bio-securitisation”. They also provide an illusion of pandemic safety – assuring citizens that through the “fetish” of the certificate “safe travel” can magically be reinstated. Securing territories and populations has always been, in Foucauldian terms, a matter of “making a division between good and bad circulation and maximizing the good circulation by diminishing the bad”. We can therefore reasonably expect growing contestation, including before courts, around COVID-19 certificates in their different national and international iterations, as their inherently discriminatory nature and other unintended consequences such as those stemming from the use of persuasive – as opposed to the more traditional coercive – governmental power begin to unfold in their performative trajectory.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Certifying Health: The Unequal Legal Geographies of COVID-19 Certificates

Alemanno

Białasiewicz

2021

Eur. j. risk regul.

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“…Lockdowns and associated border controls have also included export curbs on medical supplies that reinforce existing global inequalities in access to medicines and equipment, and repatriation flights have reaffirmed starkly how citizenship determines who matters and who does not ( Ferhani and Rushton 2020 ). Moreover, tracking and surveillance have shed light on new ways in which power is exercised, perhaps even heralding the arrival of “sensory power” as a new modality of power ( Isin and Ruppert 2020 ).…”

Section: How Critical Security Studies Informs Our Understanding Of Tmentioning

confidence: 99%

FORUM: COVID-19 and IR Scholarship: One Profession, Many Voices

Agostinis

Grépin

Kamradt‐Scott

et al. 2021

International Studies Review

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The COVID-19 pandemic has affected virtually every aspect of life, for individuals, communities, nations, regions, and the international system. In this forum, scholars from around the world with diverse areas of expertise consider the contributions of international relations (IR) scholarship in our understanding of the politics and governance challenges surrounding the pandemic. The seven essays that follow together examine how our current state of knowledge speaks to the theme of ISA 2020: “Multiple Identities and Scholarship in a Global IR: One Profession, Many Voices.” Each essay features a research area and body of scholarship that both informs our understanding of the COVID-19 pandemic and reflects on how the pandemic challenges us to push our scholarship and intellectual community further. Together, these essays highlight the diversity of our discipline of IR and how its many voices may bring us together in one conversation. La pandemia de COVID-19 ha afectado prácticamente a todos los aspectos de la vida para las personas, las comunidades, las naciones, las regiones y el sistema internacional. En este foro, los académicos de todo el mundo con diversas áreas de experiencia consideran las contribuciones de los estudios de las relaciones internacionales (International Relations, IR) a nuestro entendimiento de la política y los desafíos de gobierno que rodean a la pandemia. Los siete ensayos a continuación analizan en conjunto cómo nuestro estado de conocimiento actual aborda el tema de la Asociación de Estudios Internacionales (International Studies Association, ISA) de 2020: “Múltiples identidades y estudios en una IR global: una profesión, muchas voces.” Cada ensayo presenta un área de investigación y un cuerpo de estudios que conforman nuestro entendimiento de la pandemia de COVID-19 y también reflexionan sobre cómo esta nos desafía a impulsar aún más a nuestra comunidad académica e intelectual. En conjunto, estos ensayos destacan la diversidad de nuestra disciplina de relaciones internacionales y cómo sus numerosas voces pueden juntarnos en una conversación. La pandémie de COVID 2019 a affecté pratiquement tous les aspects de la vie, que ce soit les individus, les communautés, les nations, les régions ou le système international. Dans cette tribune, des chercheurs du monde entier spécialisés dans divers domaines d'expertise réfléchissent aux contributions des recherches en relations internationales à notre compréhension des défis politiques et de gouvernance entourant la pandémie. Les sept essais ainsi réunis examinent la manière dont l’état actuel de nos connaissances aborde le thème de la convention 2020 de l'Association d’études internationales : « Identités et recherches multiples dans des relations internationales globales : une profession, de nombreuses voix ». Chaque essai présente un domaine de recherche et un corpus d’études qui éclaire notre compréhension de la pandémie de COVID 2019 tout en amenant une réflexion sur la façon dont la pandémie nous remet en question et nous pousse à aller plus loin dans nos recherches et notre communauté intellectuelle. Ensemble, ces essais mettent en évidence la diversité de notre discipline des relations internationales et la manière dont ses nombreuses voix peuvent nous réunir dans un débat.

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“…A Foucauldian conception of power/ knowledge in which forms of power are constructed, legitimized, and enacted in specific assemblages of agents, practices and technologies offers a productive framing, especially when different forms are viewed as overlaid and articulated (e.g. Isin and Ruppert 2020). However, this needs to be supplemented by a conjunctural view of such shifting formations which explores the ways in which articulations of knowledge, power and politics are always particular to specific moments of time-spaceas are the challenges and contestations that they encounter (Newman and Clarke 2018).…”

Section: Which Racism Is This?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Following the science? Covid-19, ‘race’ and the politics of knowing

Clarke

2021

Cultural Studies

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The UK government has consistently claimed to be 'following the science' in its approach to the pandemic but this claim conceals complex and shifting entanglements of politics and science. The instability of the relationship between politics and science became increasingly visible around the unequal vulnerability of racialized minorities to infection and death from Covid-19. How and when Black and other minoritized deaths matter has become the focus of UK governmental efforts to delay and deflect, in what has been claimed to be the 'best country in the world to be a black person'. Rather than the rule of Science, what the pandemic reveals are the conjunctural contested articulations of science(s) and politics.

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The birth of sensory power: How a pandemic made it visible?

Cited by 59 publications

References 41 publications

Certifying Health: The Unequal Legal Geographies of COVID-19 Certificates

Certifying Health: The Unequal Legal Geographies of COVID-19 Certificates

FORUM: COVID-19 and IR Scholarship: One Profession, Many Voices

Following the science? Covid-19, ‘race’ and the politics of knowing

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