Undoing the Discipline: History in the Time of Climate Crisis and COVID-19

Abstract

gives a fresh urgency to research trajectories around climate and environment in historical research. We use examples from African, Japanese, and medieval European environmental history to chart new ways to mobilise collaborative research into the planetary past in academic and public discussions. Our main points are, first, that COVID-19 has underlined the entanglements between human and planetary life, which historians must better account for. Secondly, it is pertinent to decentre knowledge production. COVID-19 and climate crisis are both global phenomena. Yet patterns of knowledge production that propose 'universal' frameworks and solutions obscure highly unequal power relations. We call for more plural historiesin time, space, and species -to confront the complex crises of our times.

Pandemias, ecologia e saúde e no Antropoceno

“…Desde o questionamento fundamental colocado por Mendelsohn até o artigo seminal de Anderson publicado em Osiris em 2004, a historiografia da ecologia das doenças infecciosas se avolumou. Autores como Pierre Olivier-Méthot, Mark Honigsbaum, Susan Jones, Rachel Mason Dentinger, Bernardo Fantini, Jon Arrizabalaga, Christoph Gradmann, entre outros, contribuíram para trazer à cena outros personagens, conceitos, correntes teóricas e programas de investigação marcantes na trajetória histórica da compreensão ecológica das doenças e das interfaces entre a pesquisa médica e a biologia (ALIZON; MÉTHOT, 2018;ARRIZABALAGA, 2018;GRADMANN, 2018;HONIGSBAUM, 2016aHONIGSBAUM, , 2016bHONIGSBAUM, , 2017JONES, 2017;JONES;AMRAMINA, 2018;MÉTHOT, 2012MÉTHOT, , 2016ALIZON, 2014;FANTINI, 2014;PIPER, 2015;TILLEY, 2004;WAY, 2015). Essa historiografia mostra como diversos expoentes da pesquisa biomédica enquadraram as doenças infecciosas nos termos de processos biológicos caracterizados pela luta dos seres vivos pela sobrevivência e por ajustes adaptativos.…”

“…Da mesma forma que os historiadores têm reagido às implicações do conceito do Antropoceno para a ciência histórica (CHAKRABARTY, 2009(CHAKRABARTY, , 2018(CHAKRABARTY, , 2020bCHARBONNIER, 2017;QUENET, 2019;SIMON, 2017LOPES, 2021;TURIN, 2022), eles também responderam aos efeitos da pandemia de Covid-19 para seu ofício, identidade profissional, prática disciplinar e para as respectivas vertentes especializadas da historiografia nas quais se situam (SÁ et al, 2020;POWER;PEŠA, HONDA, 2020;DELANTY, 2021;ESPINOSA et. al., 2021).…”

‘In constant fear of some dire epidemic breaking out’: Rural responses to infectious and epidemic disease, 1870–1920

“…As Amanda Power, Iva Pesa, and Eiko Honda remind us in the context of Covid-19, it is important to consider such local experiences rather than solely focus on the national or global if we are to understand the different scales of action and reaction to disease outbreaks that includes the rural as much as it does the experiences of large cities. 5 A large body of scholarship has explored the role waterborne diseases like cholera and typhoid had in shaping public health, with more recent studies considering how surveillance, disinfection, isolation, and their links to Liberal governance underpinned preventative public health after 1870. 6 Studies of epidemic diseases, such as cholera or influenza, have shed light on the medical and social construction of infectious diseases to consider how governments, medical officials, the press, and provincial and metropolitan urban authorities responded.…”