Covid19

COVID-19 in El Paso: A Spectacle of Injustice By Amy Reed-Sandoval The French philosopher Michel Foucault famously described the nature of a “spectacle” in Discipline and Punish, in which he explored 18th century public executions in France. The purpose of spectacle, he argued, is “to bring into play…the dissymmetry between the subject who has dared to violate the law and the all-powerful sovereign who displays his strength.” Such “Foucauldian spectacles” are about inequality and, above all else, power. Despite the various forces striving to invisibilize COVID-19 as much as possible, COVID-19 has become, I argue, a Foucauldian spectacle in the U.S.-Mexico border city of El Paso, Texas, which is now being described as the COVID-19 epicenter in the United States. We need to study this heart-breaking spectacle in order to learn vital lessons from it. First, let’s establish what’s being seen: devastating images of ten mobile morgues set up outside the El Paso medical examiner’s office, and circulated photos of prisoners carrying corpses into those very refrigerated trailers. El Paso’s grand convention center was converted into a makeshift medical center, while overrun hospitals have set up “heated isolation tents” to serve even more of the gravely ill. Some patients are being airlifted out [...]

By Ingrid Rafaele Rodrigues Leiria* Overview of Brazilian Case | November 13, 2020 At the beginning of 2020, Brazil and the world were surprised by the presence of a new virus, the SARS-CoV-2, known as COVID-19. By the first half of 2020, the virus had led to the infection of millions of people and the death of thousands worldwide. COVID-19 is easily transmitted, therefore a need for high prevention, frequent hand hygiene, and the use of facial masks by the population (WHO, 2020). However, when we look at the Brazilian case, there is a lot of social-economic problems that may restrict virus prevention and allow it to scatter among people even quickly. Economic inequality can be translated into an inequality in access to water and sanitation, increasing risks of disease transmission (UNESCO, UN-Water, 2020). Worldwide in 2019, 26.1 percent of the global population, did not have access to handwashing with available soap and clean water (Brauer et at., 2020). In 2018, around 32 percent of Brazilians households did not have access to basic sanitation treatment and 6.8 percent of the population with 15-year-old or up were illiterate. In urban parts of Brazil due to an accelerated and not [...]

 Por Mônica Dias Martins e Bernardo Mançano Fernandes | October 12, 2020 Durante a pandemia que assola o planeta, a Amazônia com uma extensão de 7 milhões de quilômetros quadrados, abrangendo territórios de 9 países, sofre uma nova ofensiva capitalista, neocolonialista e etnocida respaldada pela cumplicidade ou inércia dos governantes. Os povos da floresta persistem sendo submetidos à violência do genocídio cultural e físico por parte de grandes empresas agropecuárias e extrativistas (madeireiras e mineradoras), em especial os povos isolados. A devastação ambiental ameaça diretamente o modo de vida das populações indígenas que ao perder seu entorno natural veem desaparecer suas fontes de alimentação, têm suas águas contaminadas, perdem seus espaços de convívio social e religioso. Desde sempre o contato com o “homem branco” encontra corpos fortes e sadios, mas despreparados para reagir às enfermidades da “civilização ocidental”. Os problemas ambientais e sociais são gigantescos e há resistências, sendo notável o surgimento de uma gama variada e crescente de militantes e cientistas indígenas. O modo de gestão territorial indígena e a ideia de florestania (em contraposição à cidadania) são duas importantes contribuições ao reivindicar um lugar na sociedade sem renunciar a sua identidade indígena. II No Brasil, país [...]

By Amy Risley In June 2020, the World Health Organization identified Latin America as an epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic. Sadly, the region now risks becoming an epicenter of the “Shadow Pandemic,” the global surge in gender-based violence (UN Women 2020a). In Latin America, an estimated 20 million women and girls experience sexual and physical abuse each year. According to the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean, at least 3,529 women were victims of femicide in 2018 (Fumega 2020). Available data suggest a substantial increase in physical and sexual intimate partner violence across the region during the pandemic. Notwithstanding this spike, the structural, institutional, and cultural forces that create a permissive environment for such violence predate the arrival of coronavirus. Nowhere is this more apparent than in Central America and Mexico, where women activists and human rights defenders are insisting that the “crisis was already here” when the pandemic hit (IM-Defensoras 2020). Communities were already reeling from simultaneous social and political crises, militarized policing, and state-sponsored repression and criminal violence targeting activists who defend the environment and the rights of women, LGBTQ, indigenous, Afro-indigenous, and other communities. Neoliberal economic policies had exacerbated inequalities and undermined public [...]

Por Mariela Díaz Sandoval | Aug. 6, 2020 Bastaron pocas semanas de confinamiento forzoso, provocado por la pandemia del COVID-19, para que los seres humanos nos sorprendiéramos ante el avistamiento inusual de ejemplares de la vida silvestre. A pesar de algunas fake news que circularon al respecto (Daly, 2020), llamó la atención un video que capturó a una ballena realizando majestuosos saltos en la Bahía de Acapulco. En el mismo sentido, distintas playas de México presenciaron bioluminiscencia, proceso que se traduce en un bello resplandor color turquesa (Heras, 2020), que remite a la extraordinaria Life of Pi, de Ang Lee, obra maestra donde, precisamente, se replantea la relación entre la vida salvaje y el ser humano. Más allá de las hermosas instantáneas y videos bajo la frase “los animales recuperan lo que les pertenece”, el impacto del COVID-19 que, se presume, será catastrófico en distintas esferas de la convivencia humana, provoca legítimas preguntas sobre la génesis de la pandemia. La experiencia actual nos remonta al AH1N1, una cepa de la gripe porcina que tuvo su epicentro en México, y cuyo primer contagiado fue un niño de cinco años, vecino de la estadounidense Granjas Caroll (filial ubicada en La Gloria, Oaxaca) (Granados Chapa, 2009). El [...]

Por Alberto Espejel Espinoza  | June 25, 2020 El objetivo de la reflexión es brindar un panorama general sobre la situación que guarda la población carcelaria frente al COVID-19 en México. Primero se discute la situación carcelaria, resaltando los problemas en su interior. En segundo lugar, se muestra la relación entre COVID-19 y penales en el caso mexicano. Situación carcelaria en México En México, la población penitenciaria es un sector estigmatizado, que vive en condiciones indignas ante el olvido de los gobiernos estatales y federal durante varios sexenios (Documenta, 2016). Vale la pena resaltar que México es una sociedad de las más violentas e inseguras de la región. El 2019 fue el año más violento de la historia reciente (CNN Español, 2020). En ese mismo sentido, el aumento de la violencia responde a una estrategia de seguridad mal implementada (de parte de los tres niveles de gobierno, desde hace al menos dos sexenios), así como sustentada en la mano dura, lo cual ha detonado en problemas de sobrepoblación y hacinamiento, deterioro de los servicios, ingobernabilidad, así como vulnerabilidad de los derechos humanos (México Evalúa, 2013). COVID y penales El riesgo de contagio, derivado de no seguir los protocolos básicos [...]

June 20, 2020 CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS: COVID 19 Blog Latin American Perspectives would like to invite its readers, editors, and authors to submit short reflections and or photographs to our blog about how communities in Latin America and Latinx communities in the US are confronting the COVID-19 crisis. Blog posts should run between 200 to 1000 words and can be in English, Spanish or Portuguese. Please send your submissions to lap.outreach@gmail.com, subject line “COVID-19 Blog” While social distancing and quarantine protocols are necessary to stem the spread of the virus, we are witnessing ways in which these measures can also reinforce economic and social inequalities and hurt working-class families across the Americas. LAP has a rich history of questioning the empty promises of social mobility and progress that often go hand-in-hand with neoliberalism, neo-colonialism, imperialism, and globalization, and we feel the need to be on alert as military forces take on more predominant roles and as governments threaten to institutionalize draconian austerity measures. The COVID-19 virus exposes the weaknesses of the capitalist market to provide health care, food security, safety and education to millions of Latinx in a crisis. It also puts women in dangerous situations when asked to remain [...]

Leading by Example: Cuba in the Covid-19 Pandemic by Helen Yaffe, CounterPunch The response of socialist Cuba to the global SARS-CoV2 pandemic has been outstanding both domestically and for its international contribution. That a small island nation, subjected to hundreds of years of colonialism and imperialism and, since the Revolution of 1959, six decades of the criminal United States blockade, can play such an exemplary role is due to Cuba’s socialist system. The central plan directs national resources according to a development strategy which prioritises human welfare and community participation, not private profit. Cuban authorities reacted quickly to Chinese information about SARS-CoV2 at the start of the year. In January, authorities established a National Intersectoral Commission for COVID-19, updated their National Action Plan for Epidemics, initiated surveillance at ports, airports and marines, gave COVID-19 response training for border and immigration officials and drafted a ‘prevention and control’ plan. Cuban specialists travelled to China to learn about the new coronavirus’ behaviour and commissions of the government’s Scientific Council began to work on combating the coronavirus. Throughout February, medical facilities were reorganised, and staff trained to control the spread of the virus domestically. In early March a science and biotechnology [...]

May 21, 2020 Quick Take Video  - Dr. Alexandre Kalache - Corona Pandemic - 040320 VIEW VIDEO https://youtu.be/8jENsQa9bY8   Posted by LAP Outreach Coordinator at 9:28 AM