The Limits of Scientific Gaze: Exploring the Contradictions of Contagion, 2011

Authors

  • Maximiliano E. Korstanje Centre for Ethnicity and Racism Studies, University of Leeds UK
  • Geoffrey Skoll Department of Criminal Justice, Buffalo State College, USA

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.6000/2371-1655.2015.01.03

Keywords:

Mobilities, tourism, Virus, Death, Disasters, Pandemics

Abstract

This essay explores the synopsis of the film Contagion (2011) that narrates the ethical dilemma of sacrifice in a post-disaster context. At first glance, it seems to emulate the situation during Swine flu outbreaks, radicalizing the political discourse in two directions. On one hand, China, a new emerging but undemocratic superpower, is portrayed as dangerous, disordered, and the Chinese as lazy. In the movie, the United States government intervenes to maintain the security of world health. The US intervention entails restricting the rights of democratic life such as mobility, trade, connectivity, and the distribution of food. The implication is that mobility and tourism facilitate virus outbreaks. This movie presents an ethnocentric discourse because it assumes that only mobility in the First world is safe. Global connections which enable the introduction of Third World from presumed uncivilized cultures lead to the possibility of apocalyptic pandemics.

References

Aichele, G. 2006. The Possibility of Error: Minority Report and the Gospel of Mark. Biblical Interpretation: A Journal of Contemporary Approaches, 14(1-2): 1-2.

Baudrillard, Jean. 2006. “Virtuality and Events: the hell of power”. Baudrillard Studies. Vol. 3 (2). July. Available at http://www.ubishops.ca/BaudrillardStudies/. Bishop´s University, Canada. Version translated by Chris Turner.

Bauman, Zygmunt. 2007 Consuming Life. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Bauman, Zygmunt. 2008. Liquid fear. Buenos Aires: Paidos.

Bauman, Zygmunt. 2011 La Sociedad Sitiada. [The Besiege society] Buenos Aires: FCE

Bauman, Zygmunt, & Lyon, D. 2013. Liquid surveillance: A conversation. London: John Wiley & Sons.

Beck, Ulrich. 2006. La Sociedad del Riesgo: hacia una nueva modernidad. Paidos: Buenos Aires.

Bouton, Claude. 2011. “La Sima entre el saber y el poder: sobre algunas modalidades contemporáneas del porvenir”. En La Humanidad amenazada: gobernar los riesgos globales. Editores Innerarity, D. & Solana, (pp. 21-33). J. Madrid: Paidos.

Desroches, Dominic. 2011. “Gestión del Riesgo y Aceleración del tiempo” En La Humanidad amenazada: gobernar los riesgos globales. (pp. 47-68)Editores Innerarity, D. & Solana, J. Madrid, Paidos

Drotner, Kristen. 1992. “Modernity and media panics”. Media cultures: Reappraising transnational media, 42: 42-62.

Elden, Stuart. 2005. “The State of territory under globalization: empire and the politics of territorialisation”. In Maria Margaroni and Effie Yiannastopoulou (eds). Born across: metaphoricity and postmodern politics. Amsterdam, Rodopi.

Etzioni, Amitai. 2012 “the domestic source of global adhocracy”. Social Change Review. 10 (2): 99-124. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/scr-2013-0014

Foucault, Michel. 1992. Microfísica del Poder. Madrid: La Piqueta.

Foucault, Michel. 2000. Los Anormales. Curso en el College de France. 1974-1975. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Foucault, Michel. 2006. Seguridad, Territorio y Población. Buenos Aires: Fondo de Cultura Económica.

Foucault, Michel. 2008. El Nacimiento de la Clínica. Buenos Aires: Siglo XXI

Giddens, Anthony. 1991. Modernity and Self Identity: self and society in the late Modern Age. California: Stanford University Press.

Giddens, Anthony. 1999. Consecuencias de la Modernidad. Madrid: Editorial Alianza.

Giddens Anthony. 2011. The Politics of Climate Change. Polity Press: Cambridge

Goffman, Erving. 1961. Asylum. Essays on the social Situation of Mental Patients and Other Inmates. New York: Anchor Book Editions.

Goodwin, R., Haque, S., Neto, F., & Myers, L. B. (2009). “Initial psychological responses to Influenza A, H1N1”. BMC Infectious Diseases, 9(1), 166. http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2334-9-166

Hardt, Michael & Negri, Antonio. 2002. Empire. Buenos Aires: Paidos.

Hardt, Michael & Negri Antonio. 2004. Multitude. War and democracy in the age of Empire. Barcelona: Debate.

Haider, M. Ahamed, N. S. & Leslie, T. (2008). “Challenges for Bangladesh to Conquer Avian Influenza”. International Journal of Pharmaceutical and Healthcare Marketing. Vol. 2 (4): 273-283. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17506120810922321

Hilton, S., & Hunt, K. (2011). “UK newspapers' representations of the 2009–10 outbreak of swine flu: one health scare not over-hyped by the media?”. Journal of epidemiology and Community Health, 65(10), 941-946. http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/jech.2010.119875

Hofstadter, Richard. 1992 Social Darwinism in American Thoughts. Boston: Beacon Press.

Hollis, Martin 2011 The Philosophy of Social Science. An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Keane, Stephen. 2006. Disaster movies: The cinema of catastrophe (Vol. 6). New York: Wallflower Press.

Klein, Naomi. 2007. The shock doctrine: The rise of disaster capitalism. New York: Macmillan.

Korstanje, Maximiliano. 2010. “Commentaries on our new ways of perceiving disasters”. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, 1(2), 241-248. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17595901011056677

Korstanje, Maximiliano. E. 2011a. “Reconnecting with poverty: New challenges of disaster management”. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, 2(2): 165-177. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17595901111149150

Korstanje, Maximiliano. E. 2011b. “Swine flu in Buenos Aires: beyond the principle of resilience”. International Journal of Disaster Resilience in the Built Environment, 2(1): 59-73. http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17595901111108371

Korstanje, Maximiliano. E. 2013. “Preemption and Terrorism. When the Future Governs”. Cultura: International Journal of Philosophy of Culture & Axiology, 10(1).

Korstanje, Maximiliano. E., & Skoll, Geoffrey. 2013. “An Essay on the Social Costs and Benefits of Technology Evolution”. Human & Social Studies. Research and Practice, 2(2): 13-39. http://dx.doi.org/10.2478/hssr-2013-0002

Lacy, Mark. J. (2001). “Cinema and ecopolitics: Existence in the Jurassic Park”. Millennium-Journal of International Studies, 30(3): 635-645. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/03058298010300031701

Laszlo, Erwin & Kingsley, Dennis. 2013. Dawn of the Akashic Age. New consciousness, quantum resonance and the future of the world. Rochester, Inner Tradition.

Levin, David. M. 1993. Modernity and the Hegemony of Vision. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Litvin, Stephen. 2004. “A look back at Sars and SIP”. E-Review of Tourism research (eRTR). 2 (1): 1-3.

Lyon, David. 2004. “Globalizing Surveillance Comparative and Sociological Perspectives”. International Sociology, 19(2): 135-149. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0268580904042897

Macnamara, Jim. 2005. “Media content analysis: Its uses, benefits and best practice methodology”. Asia Pacific Public Relations Journal, 6(1): 1-34.

Mead, George. H. 2009. Mind, self, and society: From the standpoint of a social behaviourist (Vol. 1). Chicago: University of Chicago press.

McKercher, Bob. 2003. “SIP (Sars induced Panic) a greater threat to Tourism than Sars (Severe acute respiratory Syndrome”. E-revise of Tourism Research (ERTR). 1 (1):17-18.

Miller David. 2007 National Responsability and Global Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ofri, Danielle. 2009. “The emotional epidemiology of H1N1 influenza vaccination”. New England Journal of Medicine, 361(27): 2594-2595. http://dx.doi.org/10.1056/NEJMp0911047

Pile, James. C., & Gordon, Steven. M. (2006). “Pandemic influenza and the hospitalist: Apocalypse when?”. Journal of Hospital Medicine, 1(2), 118-123. http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/jhm.81

Quarantelli, Enrico L 1980 “The study of Disaster movies: research problems, findings and implications”. Preliminary paper, 64. Repository of the University of Delaware, US. Available at dspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/447.

Quarantelli, Enrico. L. (1985). Realities and mythologies in disaster films. National Emergency Training Center. http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/comm.1985.11.1.31

Rubin, G. J., Amlôt, R., Page, L., & Wessely, S. (2009). “Public perceptions, anxiety, and behaviour change in relation to the swine flu outbreak: cross sectional telephone survey”. BMJ: British Medical Journal, 339.

Sandman, Peter. M. 2009. “Pandemics: good hygiene is not enough”. Nature,459 (7245): 322-323. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/459322a

Schmitt, Richard. 1995 Beyond Separateness. The social nature of human beings. Boulder: Westview Press.

Skoll, Geoffrey. R., & Korstanje, Maximiliano. E. 2012. “Risks, totems, and fetishes in Marx and Freud”. Sincronía, (2): 11-27.

Skoll, G. R., & Korstanje, M. E. (2013). Constructing an American fear culture from red scares to terrorism. International Journal of Human Rights and Constitutional Studies, 1(4), 341-364. http://dx.doi.org/10.1504/IJHRCS.2013.057302

Sunstein, Cass. 2005 Laws of Fear: Beyond the Precautionary Principle. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511790850

Sunstein, Cass. 2006. Riesgo y Razón: seguridad, ley y medioambiente. Editorial Katz: Buenos Aires.

Tarlow. Peter. 2011. “Tourism Risk Management in an Age of Terrorism”. In Terrorism, Tourism and Economy. Special issue edited by Maximiliano Korstanje. Economía Autonoma. 7 (1): 25-40

Toffler, Alvin. 1991. Powershift: knowledge, walth and violence at the edge of the 21st century. New York: Battam Books.

Tzanelli, Rodanthi. 2014. “Business as usual? Transforming Brazilian slumscapes in hyper-neoliberal digital environments”. The Sociological Imagination.

Virilio, Paul. 2010 The University of Disaster. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Webb, Gary. R. 2007. “The popular culture of disaster: Exploring a new dimension of disaster research”. In Handbook of disaster research (pp. 430-440). New York: Springer.

Wrisley, George. 2010. “La Isla del Subjetivismo Ético: no el paraíso de Lost”. En La Filosofía de Lost: la isla tiene sus razones. S. M. Kaye (Editora), (pp. 41-54). Buenos Aires, El Zorzal.

Downloads

Published

2015-06-30

How to Cite

Korstanje, M. E., & Skoll, G. (2015). The Limits of Scientific Gaze: Exploring the Contradictions of Contagion, 2011. International Journal of Humanities and Social Science Research, 1, 20–29. https://doi.org/10.6000/2371-1655.2015.01.03

Issue

Section

Articles