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Research projects

The pandemic situation - Health Security and politics of epidemiologic data

Sub-project at the Collaborative Research Centre "Dynamics of Security. Types of Securitization from a Historical Perspective", which the German Research Foundation (DFG) is now funding in its 3rd funding period.

In contrast to more event-based disasters, the health emergency surrounding COVID-19 was an enduring crisis. Security measures had to be continuously adapted to an ongoing and volatile situation. Accordingly, the authorities responsible for disease control were faced with the challenge to understand and treat the pandemic as a dynamic event.

The sub-project is based on the observation that medias of quantification serve as crucial instruments for capturing this dynamic and making it manageable. It therefore focuses on the data-graphics and dashboards which are deployed to grasp and record the situation in “real-time”. How is a situation that is constantly unfolding made visible using numerical-visual techniques and digital media? Another focus of research is on simulation models that describe scenarios of potential pandemic developments: How is an inherently unknown future illuminated on the basis of epidemiological ratios, estimations and hypothetical assumptions in order to tie decision-making processes to a calculation of the "lesser evil" (Weizman 2011)? The analytical gaze is directed at those calculative techniques, normative implications and aesthetic practices that both data-graphics and simulations conceal rather than openly exhibit in their use. As they have continuously informed the pandemic situation and prepared it for far-reaching interventions, their critical analysis makes an important contribution to clarifying the political epistemology of health security. 

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