The pandemic has plenty of deep repercussions on space, landscape and place.
One of these that might not be on the top of our minds is evictions.
Please watch this video on Barcelona, a city with a powerful political history of resistance and one under extreme pressure from gentrification, unemployment and housing shortages, and the distorting effect of mass tourism.
The video is 11 minutes long.
PS: if you are wondering what a vulture fund is, there is a definition here:
One of these that might not be on the top of our minds is evictions.
Please watch this video on Barcelona, a city with a powerful political history of resistance and one under extreme pressure from gentrification, unemployment and housing shortages, and the distorting effect of mass tourism.
The video is 11 minutes long.
PS: if you are wondering what a vulture fund is, there is a definition here:
Inequalities
Inequalities have a major impact on how COVID impacts individuals and communities within countries, states and cities and between them. The capacity to cope with job loss, illness, financial dependency, depression and mental illness is extremely uneven.
As is the availability of support. This is accentuated on common inequalities (race, gender, class) but others too, such as citizenship, insured/uninsured, urban/rural among others.
Access to testing and treatment is uneven, as are the costs for seeking treatment and undergoing isolation and hospitalisation.
The vaccines are the latest acceleration of inequality within and between countries.
NYT vaccine tracker here:
Inequalities have a major impact on how COVID impacts individuals and communities within countries, states and cities and between them. The capacity to cope with job loss, illness, financial dependency, depression and mental illness is extremely uneven.
As is the availability of support. This is accentuated on common inequalities (race, gender, class) but others too, such as citizenship, insured/uninsured, urban/rural among others.
Access to testing and treatment is uneven, as are the costs for seeking treatment and undergoing isolation and hospitalisation.
The vaccines are the latest acceleration of inequality within and between countries.
NYT vaccine tracker here:
Surveillance
COVID19 is having a transformative impact on the movement of people in cities and between cities.
COVID19 necessitates a rush to institute technologies to track human bodies using pervasive, intimate, and ‘live’ surveillance
A vital preventive measure during COVID19 is restricting mobility to limit human contact (Brail 2021). Poom et al. argue that responses to the pandemic constitute ‘the biggest disruption to individual mobilities in modern times’ (2020: 1).
Brail, S., 2021. Patterns Amidst the Turmoil: COVID-19 and Cities. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 48(4), pp.598-603;
Poom, A. et al. 2020. COVID-19 is Spatial: Ensuring that mobile Big Data is used for social good. Big Data & Society, 7(2): 2053951720952088
What does this mean? Tracking and monitoring bodies 'live' rather than the spaces where bodies pass and congregate.
Live surveillance tracks where people go, how long they spend there, who they encounter, and their degree of exposure to the virus. It is common for individuals to consent to live surveillance, especially as a trade-off for greater mobility and convenience.
Live surveillance governs differentiated mobilities for citizens and non-citizens, for the digitally-equipped and digitally-deprived, for the vaccinated and unvaccinated (‘unvaccinated’ refers predominantly to people unable to access vaccines, as well as those opposed to vaccines).
COVID19 has accelerated surveillance and expanded its geographic reach, the latest episode in a long technological creep since the 1980s through changing technologies (CCTV, AI, biometrics), integration of surveillance technology into personal electronics, and the ‘data revolution’ that feeds and ‘feeds off’ surveillance data, much of it created through consumer activity.
COVID19 generated a series of responses:
COVID19 apps, data and subsequent spatial practices enable the ‘live governing of the dynamic relation between bodies and populations’ by tracking bodies infected with the virus, ‘notifying, testing and isolating (if necessary) them’ and ‘tracing all bodies that infected bodies came into contact with, notifying, testing and isolating (if necessary) them as well’ (Isin & Ruppert 2020: 11).
COVID19 has accelerated the spread of sensory power: ways of governing people through sensors, surveillance and the data they produce.
This shift towards ‘sensory power’ builds on past forms of power (sovereign, disciplinary, regulatory) to foreground sensors as ‘technologies of detecting, identifying and making people sense-able through various forms of digitised data’ (Isin & Ruppert 2020: 2).
Isin, E., & Ruppert, E. (2020). The birth of sensory power: How a pandemic made it visible?. Big Data & Society, 7(2), 2053951720969208.
The sudden and global nature of the pandemic accelerated the adoption of sensory power, enrolling millions of people into surveillance technology for the first time, deepening the enrolment of others, and making live surveillance a necessary part of everyday mobilities; with and without consent.
Crucially, while apps and networked surveillance infrastructure draws most attention, local surveillance practices include human interactions as contact tracers, CCTV control room operators, and programmers.
Also used are time-honoured containment measures such as lockdowns, cordon sanitaires, security guards, and police and paramilitary activities; aiding surveillance by limiting mobility.
The current global moment provides an unprecedented opportunity to advance understandings of sensory power, mobilities and space due to the extreme nature of the pandemic and the resultant reach of live surveillance.
Different geopolitical contexts shape live surveillance practices and the ways people experience, interpret and challenge them.
The future of live surveillance is difficult to predict, however we can assume 3 things:
COVID19 is having a transformative impact on the movement of people in cities and between cities.
COVID19 necessitates a rush to institute technologies to track human bodies using pervasive, intimate, and ‘live’ surveillance
A vital preventive measure during COVID19 is restricting mobility to limit human contact (Brail 2021). Poom et al. argue that responses to the pandemic constitute ‘the biggest disruption to individual mobilities in modern times’ (2020: 1).
Brail, S., 2021. Patterns Amidst the Turmoil: COVID-19 and Cities. Environment and Planning B: Urban Analytics and City Science, 48(4), pp.598-603;
Poom, A. et al. 2020. COVID-19 is Spatial: Ensuring that mobile Big Data is used for social good. Big Data & Society, 7(2): 2053951720952088
What does this mean? Tracking and monitoring bodies 'live' rather than the spaces where bodies pass and congregate.
Live surveillance tracks where people go, how long they spend there, who they encounter, and their degree of exposure to the virus. It is common for individuals to consent to live surveillance, especially as a trade-off for greater mobility and convenience.
Live surveillance governs differentiated mobilities for citizens and non-citizens, for the digitally-equipped and digitally-deprived, for the vaccinated and unvaccinated (‘unvaccinated’ refers predominantly to people unable to access vaccines, as well as those opposed to vaccines).
COVID19 has accelerated surveillance and expanded its geographic reach, the latest episode in a long technological creep since the 1980s through changing technologies (CCTV, AI, biometrics), integration of surveillance technology into personal electronics, and the ‘data revolution’ that feeds and ‘feeds off’ surveillance data, much of it created through consumer activity.
COVID19 generated a series of responses:
- from strict lockdowns and contract tracing prior to vaccine development (early-mid 2020),
- lockdowns and live surveillance of vaccinated bodies following the Delta outbreak (mid-late 2021),
- a relinquishment and then revival of live surveillance with the rise of the Omicron variant, (early 2022),
- to a self-surveillance/ self-reporting model mid-2022 in conjunction with resumed global mobilities, including overseas travel and the arrival of relatives and tourists to previously closed borders.
COVID19 apps, data and subsequent spatial practices enable the ‘live governing of the dynamic relation between bodies and populations’ by tracking bodies infected with the virus, ‘notifying, testing and isolating (if necessary) them’ and ‘tracing all bodies that infected bodies came into contact with, notifying, testing and isolating (if necessary) them as well’ (Isin & Ruppert 2020: 11).
COVID19 has accelerated the spread of sensory power: ways of governing people through sensors, surveillance and the data they produce.
This shift towards ‘sensory power’ builds on past forms of power (sovereign, disciplinary, regulatory) to foreground sensors as ‘technologies of detecting, identifying and making people sense-able through various forms of digitised data’ (Isin & Ruppert 2020: 2).
Isin, E., & Ruppert, E. (2020). The birth of sensory power: How a pandemic made it visible?. Big Data & Society, 7(2), 2053951720969208.
The sudden and global nature of the pandemic accelerated the adoption of sensory power, enrolling millions of people into surveillance technology for the first time, deepening the enrolment of others, and making live surveillance a necessary part of everyday mobilities; with and without consent.
Crucially, while apps and networked surveillance infrastructure draws most attention, local surveillance practices include human interactions as contact tracers, CCTV control room operators, and programmers.
Also used are time-honoured containment measures such as lockdowns, cordon sanitaires, security guards, and police and paramilitary activities; aiding surveillance by limiting mobility.
The current global moment provides an unprecedented opportunity to advance understandings of sensory power, mobilities and space due to the extreme nature of the pandemic and the resultant reach of live surveillance.
Different geopolitical contexts shape live surveillance practices and the ways people experience, interpret and challenge them.
The future of live surveillance is difficult to predict, however we can assume 3 things:
- surveillance deemed necessary during the pandemic will continue to track and govern mobilities in some form;
- governing mobilities through sensory power will deepen existing inequalities and create new inequalities in different urban communities;
- despite the inequalities produced, the existence of live surveillance—and the sensory power it manifests—will be necessary in re-mobilising urban life;
Panic
In a general sense, panic has shifted from a singular ‘global’ panic, to very localised ways of dealing with cases and outbreaks. Some countries, states and regions respond very quickly to one or two cases (as in most of Australia) and implement lock downs quickly.
Others are prepared to live with large COVID19 numbers and give more responsibility to citizens on how to behave—altering the ways space is utilised and converting ‘risk’ to ‘choice’.
Quarantine has also shifted in a similar way; from common approaches to differentiated ones.
In a general sense, panic has shifted from a singular ‘global’ panic, to very localised ways of dealing with cases and outbreaks. Some countries, states and regions respond very quickly to one or two cases (as in most of Australia) and implement lock downs quickly.
Others are prepared to live with large COVID19 numbers and give more responsibility to citizens on how to behave—altering the ways space is utilised and converting ‘risk’ to ‘choice’.
Quarantine has also shifted in a similar way; from common approaches to differentiated ones.
Biosecurity
We put together a really detailed module on biosecurity in 2020. It has links and video and is really worth checking out.
It will really help with your writing and research into space and power, especially when the bodies that move through space pose a new kind of security risk--carrying COVID.
The link is here:
Module is about an hour to work through.
There are several key concepts we discuss here—especially the ‘vital system’—and we encourage you to go into this in depth.
Whether lessons around biosecurity are evident in the changes of the last year or whether we are more vulnerable than ever is something to watch closely.
TASK
What we want you to consider are the impacts of COVID on landscape, space and place where you live.
Your task: using your images you collected this week.
Choose three images from your group and make an argument about a relationship or set of relationships you see across these images that tell a story about a broader pattern of landscape transformation under COVID.
Relationships don’t have to be casual, i.e. a + b = c. But rather, the relationships between phenomena work in multiple ways with varied effects.
The key is we want to hear from you about what you think these relationships are and how they play out in landscapes you know.
You group will report to us at :45 past the hour. Be READY with your argument!
Finally, before you go, consider the long term impacts on landscape, especially in terms of memoryscapes and other memory practices.
How will this era in our history be remembered in 20 years, or 50?
See this article about past pandemics and landscapes of memory from The Atlantic
How will this era in our history be remembered in 20 years, or 50?
See this article about past pandemics and landscapes of memory from The Atlantic
