Perspectivas críticas de salud y hegemonía comunicativa: aperturas progresistas, enlaces letales

This essay argues that dominant ideologies and practices of communication, which it refers to as communicability, operate much like the “Hegemonic Medical Model” (Menéndez y Di Pardo, 1996). Hegemonic ideologies envision communication as a linear, unidirectional process in which messages are produced by experts –medical researchers, epidemiologists, etc.–, are circulated by health education specialists and reporters, and received by “the public”. Rather than being mere mechanical processes, spheres of communicability in health –or biocommunicability– constitute a form of governmentality that creates and ranks subjectivities and social locations. The article creates a dialogue with Latin American critical epidemiology and social medicine, particularly with the work of Jaime Breilh and Eduardo Menéndez, comparing how the frameworks proposed by these authors and the one outlined in this article analyze power, social inequality, state institutions, and neoliberal policies. At the same time that critical epidemiologists and practitioners of social medicine can provide important theoretical and political insights for informing research on biocommunicability, they have generally failed to identify and challenge hegemonic ideologies of communication and their effects on public health. The essay thus hopes to show that both epistemological and political facets of critical epidemiology and social medicine can be significantly strengthened by adding “communication” to the set of hegemonic concepts and practices that researchers evaluate critically and seek to transform. Specifically, communicability constitutes an important set of tools for constructing and naturalizing neoliberal ideologies and practices.En este ensayo el autor propone un modelo de las ideologías y prácticas dominantes de comunicación, a las cuales se refiere como comunicabilidad; estas son similares al “Modelo Medico Hegemónico” (Menéndez y Di Pardo, 1996). Las ideologías hegemónicas consideran la comunicación como un proceso lineal y unidireccional, en el cual los mensajes son producidos por expertos –investigadores de la medicina, epidemiólogos, etc.–; puestos en circulación por especialistas en educación para la salud y periodistas; y recibidas o interpretadas por “el publico”. En vez de ser simples procesos mecánicos, las esferas de la comunicabilidad en salud –o biocomunicabilidad– constituyen un tipo de gobernabilidad que crea y jerarquiza formas de subjetividad y ubicaciones sociales. Este articulo establece un diálogo con la investigación latinoamericana de epidemiología crítica y medicina social, sobre todo con el trabajo de Jaime Breilh y Eduardo Menéndez, comparando cómo los modelos propuestos por dichos autores y el que se presenta aquí analizan el poder, la inequidad social, las instituciones gubernamentales y las políticas neoliberales. A pesar de que los investigadores de la epidemiología crítica y la medicina social proporcionan unas sugerencias valiosas para las investigaciones de biocomunicabilidad, no han logrado identificar y reemplazar a las ideologías hegemónicas de comunicación y sus efectos en la salud pública. Este ensayo intenta demostrar que las dimensiones, tanto epistemológicas como políticas, de la epidemiología y la medicina social se podrían fortalecer con un esfuerzo por añadir la “comunicación” al conjunto de conceptos y prácticas hegemónicas, que los investigadores someten a evaluación crítica y que se intentan transformar. Específicamente, la comunicabilidad constituye un juego clave de herramientas para construir y naturalizar las ideologías y prácticas neoliberales

Descubriendo una falla trágica en las políticas revolucionarias de salud: desde las inequidades en salud y comunicación a la justicia comunicativa en salud

Este artículo analiza una contradicción enfrentada por los gobiernos de izquierda de América Latina en sus esfuerzos por transformar la salud en un derecho social fundamental. Las políticas y prácticas que confrontan las desigualdades en salud, en general, no llegan a dirigirse a las inequidades en salud y comunicación; las distribuciones jerárquicas de los derechos dan forma al conocimiento legítimo en salud. El artículo presenta un análisis etnográfico sobre la epidemia de una enfermedad misteriosa –identificada clínicamente como rabia trasmitida por murciélagos– en la selva del Delta Amacuro en Venezuela, en 2007-2008, centrado en cómo los padres y las madres que perdieron entre 1 y 3 hijos e hijas lidian con inequidades agudas en salud y comunicación en entornos clínicos, investigaciones epidemiológicas, trabajo con sanadores/as, la cobertura de las noticias, las políticas de salud y la comunicación en salud. A partir de demandas por parte de los y las residentes de la selva por una justicia comunicativa en salud, el análisis utiliza la noción de autoatención propuesta por Menéndez para explorar cómo la labor en salud y comunicación se coproduce con la labor de cuidado.This article analyzes a contradiction facing efforts by left-leaning governments in Latin America to transform health into a fundamental social right. Policies and practices that confront health inequities generally fail to address health/communicative inequities, hierarchical distributions of rights to shape what counts as legitimate knowledge of health. This ethnographic analysis focuses on an epidemic of a mysterious disease – identified clinically as bat-transmitted rabies – in the Delta Amacuro rainforest of Venezuela in 2007-2008, tracing how parents who lost 1-3 children faced acute health/ communicative inequities in clinical settings, epidemiological investigations, work with healers, news coverage, health policy, and health communication. Taking as a point of departure rainforest residents’ demands for communicative justice in health, the analysis draws on Menéndez’s notion of autoatención in exploring how health/communicative labor is co-produced with the labor of care

Ecologies of evidence in a mysterious epidemic

An epidemic in a Venezuelan rainforest in 2007-2008 killed 38 children and young adults, puzzling clinicians, epidemiologists, and healers alike for over a year. This essay traces the way each contribution to knowledge production formed part of a larger ecology of evidence. Focusing on how the parents' knowledge was exploited and denigrated by clinicians, epidemiologists, and healers alike points to the health/communicative inequities—grossly unequal distributions of access to the production and circulation of evidence—that structured ecologies of evidence in ways that thwarted diagnosis. Recruiting a nurse, a healer, a physician, and an anthropologist, two indigenous leaders launched an investigation that juxtaposed parents' narratives, vernacular healing, epidemiology, and clinical medicine, resulting in a clinical diagnosis of bat-transmitted rabies. This case suggests that perspectives in global health will fail to become fully critical unless they attend to health/communicative inequities, how they structure ecologies of evidence, and strategies for transforming them

Descubriendo una falla trágica en las políticas revolucionarias de salud: Desde las inequidades en salud y comunicación a la justicia comunicativa en salud

This article analyzes a contradiction facing efforts by left-leaning governments in Latin America to transform health into a fundamental social right. Policies and practices that confront health inequities generally fail to address health/communicative inequities, hierarchical distributions of rights to shape what counts as legitimate knowledge of health. This ethnographic analysis focuses on an epidemic of a mysterious disease – identified clinically as bat-transmitted rabies – in the Delta Amacuro rainforest of Venezuela in 2007-2008, tracing how parents who lost 1-3 children faced acute health/communicative inequities in clinical settings, epidemiological investigations, work with healers, news coverage, health policy, and health communication. Taking as a point of departure rainforest residents’ demands for communicative justice in health, the analysis draws on Menéndez’s notion of autoatención in exploring how health/communicative labor is co-produced with the labor of care.Este artículo analiza una contradicción enfrentada por los gobiernos de izquierda de América Latina en sus esfuerzos por transformar la salud en un derecho social fundamental. Las políticas y prácticas que confrontan las desigualdades en salud, en general, no llegan a dirigirse a las inequidades en salud y comunicación; las distribuciones jerárquicas de los derechos dan forma al conocimiento legítimo en salud. El artículo presenta un análisis etnográfico sobre la epidemia de una enfermedad misteriosa –identificada clínicamente como rabia trasmitida por murciélagos– en la selva del Delta Amacuro en Venezuela, en 2007-2008, centrado en cómo los padres y las madres que perdieron entre 1 y 3 hijos e hijas lidian con inequidades agudas en salud y comunicación en entornos clínicos, investigaciones epidemiológicas, trabajo con sanadores/as, la cobertura de las noticias, las políticas de salud y la comunicación en salud. A partir de demandas por parte de los y las residentes de la selva por una justicia comunicativa en salud, el análisis utiliza la noción de autoatención propuesta por Menéndez para explorar cómo la labor en salud y comunicación se coproduce con la labor de cuidado

Average Emissivity Curve of BATSE Gamma-Ray Bursts with Different Intensities

Six intensity groups with ~150 BATSE gamma-ray bursts each are compared using average emissivity curves. Time-stretch factors for each of the dimmer groups are estimated with respect to the brightest group, which serves as the reference, taking into account the systematics of counts-produced noise effects and choice statistics. A stretching/intensity anti-correlation is found with good statistical significance during the average back slopes of bursts. A stretch factor ~2 is found between the 150 dimmest bursts, with peak flux 4.1 ph cm^{-2} s^{-1}. On the other hand, while a trend of increasing stretching factor may exist for rise fronts for burst with decreasing peak flux from >4.1 ph cm^{-2} s^{-1} down to 0.7 ph cm^{-2} s^{-1}, the magnitude of the stretching factor is less than ~ 1.4 and is therefore inconsistent with stretching factor of back slope.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures. Accepted to Ap

Manacled to Identity: Cosmopolitanism, Class, and ‘The Culture Concept’ in Stephen Crane

This article begins with a close reading of Stephen Crane’s short story ‘Manacled’ from 1900, which situates this rarely considered short work within the context of contemporary debates about realism. I then proceed to argue that many of the debates raised by the tale have an afterlife in our own era of American literary studies, which has frequently focused on questions of ‘identity’ and ‘culture’ in its reading of realism and naturalism to the exclusion of the importance of cosmopolitan discourses of diffusion and exchange across national borders. I then offer a brief reading of Crane’s novel George’s Mother, which follows Walter Benn Michaels in suggesting that the recent critical attention paid to particularities of cultural difference in American studies have come to conflate ideas of class and social position with ideas of culture in ways that have ultimately obscured the presence of genuine historical inequalities in US society. In order to challenge this critical commonplace, I situate Crane’s work within a history of transatlantic cosmopolitanism associated with the ideas of Franz Boas and Matthew Arnold to demonstrate the ways in which Crane’s narratives sought out an experience of the universal within their treatments of the particular

An Imaging and Spectroscopic Study of the z=3.38639 Damped Lyman Alpha System in Q0201+1120: Clues to Star Formation Rate at High Redshift

We present the results of a series of imaging and spectroscopic observations aimed at identifying and studying the galaxy responsible for the z = 3.38639 damped lya system in the z = 3.61 QSO Q0201+1120. We find that the DLA is part of a concentration of matter which includes at least four galaxies (probably many more) over linear comoving dimensions, greater than 5h^-1Mpc. The absorber may be a 0.7 L* galaxy at an impact parameter of 15 h^-1 kpc, but follow-up spectroscopy is still required for positive identification. The gas is turbulent, with many absorption components distributed over approximately 270 km/s and a large spin temperature, T_s greater than 4000K. The metallicity is relatively high for this redshift, Z(DLA) approximately 1/20 Z(solar). From consideration of the relative ratios of elements which have different nucleosynthetic timescales, it would appear that the last major episode of star formation in this DLA occurred at z greater than 4.3, more than approximately 500 Myr prior to the time when we observe it.Comment: Accepted for publication in Ap

Use of materials in nest construction by Pied Flycatchers Ficedula hypoleuca reflects localised habitat and geographical location.

Capsule Pied Flycatchers use different materials to construct their nests according to localised habitat and geographical location. Aims This study tested the hypotheses that birds would use the leaves they normally encountered within their breeding territories and that nest composition varied between geographical locations. Methods In Lancashire, Pied Flycatcher nests were collected from nestboxes built in locations dominated by different tree species and were deconstructed to determine which materials were used. Results Materials found in nests generally reflected the localised habitat around the nest rather than showing evidence of active collection from distant sources of material. Nests from Lancashire were significantly different in composition when compared with published data for nests from north Wales and central Spain. The use of moss was dominated by the use of one species in all but two nests. Conclusion Pied Flycatchers exhibit plasticity in nest construction behaviour because they were opportunistic in their choice of most nesting materials although they may be selective in their choice of moss