Vulnerability processes and abyssal inequalities: would the earth be flat and the coronavirus be round?
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.19180/1809-2667.v23n12021p315-324Keywords:
Disasters, Pandemic, Inequalities, Vulnerability ProcessAbstract
In a world built by processes of vulnerability and abyssal inequalities, could we classify the Covid-19 pandemic as a natural biological disaster? The process of naturalizing crises caused by health emergencies, such as the pandemic, or disasters in general, is a trend in the way in which the Western imagination deals with these problems. The construction of communication about the pandemic follows this trend and we can follow this naturalization, as a modus operandi, whether in a pandemic or in a disaster, when considered natural. This essay follows this modus operandi in its step-by-step approach to the coronavirus pandemic. How is a disaster or pandemic naturalized? The act of naturalizing extreme events seeks to stabilize facts. This "natural" perception would be indifferent to human, amoral, and timeless action, and characterized by an automatism commanded by allegedly immutable laws - physical, natural or as immutable as: from God. It is quite clear that “natural” and “divine” are synonymous here. Naturalizing, objectifying, reifying, outlining, limiting, isolating: this is how facts and their nature are constructed! Here, however, we also have the invisibility of the process of population vulnerability: the belief in a flat world and a round virus!Downloads
References
CALLON, M.; LASCOUMES, P.; BARTHE, Y. Agir dans un monde incertain: Essai sur la démocratie technique. Paris, Seuil, 2001.
FASSIN, D.; RECHTMAN, R. L’empire du traumatisme: enquête sur la condition de victime. Paris: Flammarion, 2007.
HOFFMANN, M. et al. Chloroquine does not inhibit infection of human lung cells with SARS-CoV-2. In: Nature, n. 550, p. 588–590, 2020.
LATOUR, B. A esperança de Pandora. Bauru: Edusc, 2001.
LAVELL, A. et al. La construcción social de la pandemia COVID-19: desastre, acumulación de riesgos y políticas públicas. La Red. Red de Estudios Sociales em Prevención de Desastres em América Latina, 2020. Disponível em: https://www.desenredando.org. Acesso em: 13 jun. 2020.
LIY, M. V. OMS conclui que o coronavírus é de origem animal e indica que não surgiu no mercado de Wuhan. El País, 9 set. 2021. Disponível em: https://brasil.elpais.com/internacional/2021-02-09/oms-conclui-que-o-virus-e-de-origem-animal-e-indica-que-nao-surgiu-no-mercado-de-wuhan.html. Acesso em: 2021.
NATENZON, C. Vulnerabilidad, incertidumbre y planificación participativa de desastres: el caso de las inundaciones catastróficas en Argentina. In: PORTO, M. F.; FREITAS, C.M. (org.). Problemas ambientais e vulnerabilidade. Rio de Janeiro: Editora Fiocruz, 2003. p. 57-78.
PETERS, A. Peters World Map. 1974. Disponível em: https://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arno_Peters#cite_note-3. Acesso em: 2020.
PORTELLA, S; OLIVEIRA, S. Pensamentos durante o nevoeiro: a pandemia Covid-19. In: VALENCIO, N.; OLIVEIRA, C. M. (org.). COVID-19: crises entremeadas no contexto de pandemia (antecedentes, cenários e recomendações). São Carlos: UFSCar, CPOI, 2020a. p. 371-381.
PORTELLA, S; OLIVEIRA, S. A naturalização da Pandemia no Brasil. In: COVID-19–Perspectivas. Coimbra, Portugal: Observatório Osiris. CES. Universidade de Coimbra, 2020b. Disponível em: https://www.ces.uc.pt/ficheiros2/sites/osiris/files/OSIRIS_Portella-Santos%20Oliveira.pdf. Acesso em: 2020.
PORTELLA, S. O saber urgente do saber das urgências: redução de riscos e desastres no Brasil. 2017. Tese (Doutorado) – Universidade de Coimbra, Portugal, 2017. Disponível em: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/79583. Acesso em: 2020.
SANTOS, B. S. Para além do Pensamento Abissal: das linhas globais a uma ecologia de saberes. Rev. Crítica de Ciências Sociais, v. 78, p. 3-46, 2007.
SANTOS, M. Território, globalização e fragmentação. 4. ed. São Paulo: HUCITEC, 1998.
VALENCIO, N. Elementos constitutivos de um desastre catastrófico: os problemas científicos por detrás dos contextos críticos. Ciência e Cultura, v. 68, n. 3, p. 41-45, 2016.
Published
Issue
Section
License
The authors of the manuscript submitted to Vértices, hereby represented by the corresponding author, agree to the following terms:
The authors retain the copyright and grant Vértices the right of first publication.
At the same time the work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, allowing third parties to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format and to remix, transform, and build upon its content for any legal purpose, even commercially, provided the original work is properly cited.
Authors will not receive any material reward for the manuscript and Essentia Editora will make it available online in Open Access mode, through its own system or other databases.
Authors are authorized to enter into additional contracts separately for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in Vértices (eg, publish in institutional repository or as book chapter), with acknowledgment of authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are permitted and encouraged to disseminate and distribute the post-print (ie final draft post-refereeing) or publisher's version/PDF at online information sources (eg, in institutional repositories or on their personal page) at any time after the first publication of the article by Vértices.
Essentia Editora may make normative, orthographic and grammatical changes in the originals in order to maintain the standard language, with the final consent of the authors.
The content and opinions expressed in the manuscript are the sole responsibility of the author (s).
How to Cite
1.png)
