[Xmca-l] Re: General check-in?

Wed Apr 8 00:38:25 PDT 2020

Hi everyone
Here is South Africa we are in lockdown until 16 April. This means only trips to grocery shops, doctors and pharmacies. Unfortunately no walking or exercise outside one's property.  This seems to have slowed the infection rate 1749 cases and 13 deaths (58 million population). Cases were initially related to international travel, but are now also internal (health care workers, the elderly, church goers. whether the lock down is extended is under review

Hotly contested issues are

  *   a restriction on the number of people allowed to travel in mini-bus taxis - people need to travel to get to essential service jobs, and to shop (apartheid planning still means that people are far from city centres)
  *   whether a ban on cigarette and alcohol sales is constitutional; a ban on buying anything non essential (the topic today is whether baby clothes giving change in season are now an essential item)
  *   the banning of religious events (we are coming up to Easter), and ceremonies around funerals are restricted in size. Hotspots of infection have been related to church gatherings.
  *   an increase in domestic and gender based violence incidence (although an decline in overall crime figures)
  *   a concern that being restricted to one's 'home' is very challenging for those living in informal settlements (shacks) and living with many people in one space.
  *   a massive impact on small businesses and the informal economy (which involves most of the SA population - street hawkers, small 'spaza' shops (the government is trying to address this through tax breaks, a fund that people can apply to, and possibly increasing the social grant allocations  - pensioners, child care grant etc)
  *   a loss of jobs as businesses retrench under lockdown
  *   conspiracy theories about how it is spread (at least two arrests of people circulating fake information - such as the nasal swab testing with an earbud is infecting people with the virus - a video made by a white male). There seems to be an anti-government stance developing in SA; including fake news that 5G spreads Corona (a white male pastor saying this); scams and hacking of social media are also occuring. Government is making Whatsapp admin liable for the spread of fake news in SA
  *   an increase in human rights violations by the defence force and police ,and private security companies (abuse of people who have flouted the lock down regulations). In the media I have seen of these instances it feels as if this is unchecked. Government response has been 'people must obey the rules and report incidences of abuse'. There are echoes of armies in the townships in the 70'and 80's and rather disturbing images. I fear a return to a police state (surveillance is happening through cell phones, we are asked to report on neighbours whom we suspect have the virus, we are jailed if we escape lockdown or resist testing)
  *   the policing, surveillance and criminalisation of the homeless (who have been moved to temporary shelters)
  *   a real concern about the continuation of schooling and university education. Most South Africans do not have internet access - online and home schooling will be a problem both because of lack of resources, but also because of lack of space to study, lack of skills amongst parents to help; teachers and lecturers are being asked to train themselves, use resources etc, but they are also amongst the under-resourced
  *   most South Africans not having adequate access to proper sanitation (water especially), this constraints health care practices related to preventing the prevention such as handwashing.
  *   most South Africans also cant afford masks or hand sanitisers
  *   lack of protective clothing for health care workers (there have been protests about this, and the government does seem to  be responding

(Im sure other SAfricans on the list could correct me and add to this)

It feels as if this is the relative calm before the storm. We dont know what is going to happen. It is making people very anxious.
We have a huge population of people who are HIV positive. Many but not all are using ARV treatment and this might help. Many  South Africans also have TB, and not all are on treatment. These conditions compromise the immune system and might make the spread faster (once it gets into the general population). On the other hand some of these health issues have allowed a mechanism for increasing testing - there is now a roll out of testing using TB health systems and community mobile services. These are being directly at hotspots

On the more positive side, this situation seems to have united political parties and shown  President Cyril Ramaphosa's leadership skills .
And there is a proliferation of online cultural activity (see the Centre for the less good idea - livestreaming premiers - really good SA theatre) which I can now attend as I am 'at home'

Personally I am trying to manage the multiple tasks which come from working from home, solo parenting, doing child care and house care, whilst also managing my own existential anxiety. The pressure to 'be productive' and 'use the time' and 'take a break' are competing and contradictory, let alone take on online teaching, train oneself up etc. I think there is an extreme burden on women to hold the family fort, produce meals, entertain children, keep the peace, and of course, work (like Newton  - publish more, focus more). And there is 'online fatigue', a wonderful expression that a friend used.

However, I'm also trying to explore ways to engage in research online - constrained here in SA, and for qualitative research it feels 'wrong' as it might only access the more wealthy, resourced parts of our population.

I really appreciate the global community at this time. For example the ISCHP listserve had a wonderful question about how to do community and participatory research in this time and there were a flood of responses. I also participated in a Zoom sessions of the European Community Psychology Association and learnt a lot from many of the Italians in the group.

But, we are ok. I keep telling myself it will be ok. I hope

best wishes

Mary

________________________________
From: xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of Andy Blunden <andyb@marxists.org>
Sent: Wednesday, 08 April 2020 02:25
To: xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: General check-in?

Thanks for  summing up the situation here in Oz, John. I think you are more connected than me. But it remains the case that we have had 50 deaths from COVID-19 in a country of 25 million, overwhelmingly from virus acquired overseas or directly traceable to overseas cases.

This outcome corresponds to a transformation of the political landscape is which unbelievable, but everything depends on how we respond to these changes. So I call this not an "existential crisis", but a world-perezhivanie. China may well return to almost-normal but that is unlikely in the neo-liberal world. It is impossible to predict what the outcome will be, but it will be a self-transformation of the world activity.

Andy

________________________________
Andy Blunden
Hegel for Social Movements<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/h09GCP1JWRtKLn5khzfF74?domain=brill.com>
Home Page<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/fUxrCQ1LgVtkwLNyuPXkVb?domain=ethicalpolitics.org>
On 8/04/2020 8:34 am, John Cripps Clark wrote:

Dear Helena and David

Here in Australia we have (after a shaky start with returning travellers not taking self-isolation seriously<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/XovKCRgBjWSv3XgzcP4lAE?domain=theage.com.au> and not quarantining cruise ship passengers) we seem to be following South Korea in containing the virus. The outcry over cruise ships has been revealing. There is a police investigation<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/84XKCVmZn1Fxp8PRhJ9nbh?domain=abc.net.au> into one of them (it did lead to over 600 new cases and a few deaths). The hysteria recalls Australia’s experience in the nineteenth century of epidemics<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/bQ8zCWnBo2f5n8yWumo2UQ?domain=dictionaryofsydney.org> and isolating ourselves from plague ships<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/oNm9CX6Vp3CXLZMzF9-1rg?domain=shop.sydneylivingmuseums.com.au>.

As always it is the poor and disadvantaged that are suffering. We have tried to isolate the most vulnerable such as remote aboriginal  communities<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/y14ECY6Xq4CLyX64C3J2Yn?domain=abc.net.au> and it remains to see whether we will provide the resources necessary for these communities. Past experience is not encouraging since these communities would not be in the present state if we were serious about combatting disadvantage and poverty<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/iTGgCZ4Xr5C5WYopuNUUeJ?domain=theconversation.com>.

On a more parochial level, with extended shutdown and the universities under financial stress (partly this is our own fault by becoming dependent on overseas student fees<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/-vlFC1j735fMQXE9hm01LL?domain=campusmorningmail.com.au/> to supplement the steady erosion of government funding) we also need to support families with children who are cooped up together trying to juggle work, with childcare, with online education over the next two to ten months.

I think there are three ways in which we as, a relatively privileged, community of scholars can contribute:

  1.  Supporting our colleagues – we have unprecedently powerful communication technologies at our disposal – use them for good rather than evil. This is especially important in Africa and South America where the tidal wave (and I use this term advisedly recalling the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/o84CC2RJD6SpDQE9Uv0G5r?domain=journals.openedition.org>) is about to hit.
  2.  Considering the influence of culture (it is in our title) on the worldwide response to Covid-19. David has already flagged the work unit as a unit of social organisation in China.
  3.  We need to prepare for the post-Covid-19 bounceback once we have a vaccine. The existential crisis (and again I use the word with trepidation after the disastrous record of a former Prime Minister’s use of the adjective<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/o84CC2RJD6SpDQE9Uv0G5r?domain=journals.openedition.org>) we have is climate change and we can use the present crisis to delay or accelerate action. I have heard a frequent cry of “It will be different from now on” and history tells us that this is will not be true unless we make it so. There are powerful conservative forces (in Australia, U.S.A., Brazil etc.) who will try and use this crisis to increase the mining and use of hydrocarbons. As Martin said we are living in the Anthropocene and our success in rapidly reducing the production and sequestering atmospheric carbon dioxide that will determine our future far more than our confused response to Covid-19 (and future communicable diseases).

John

From: <xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-l-bounces@mailman.ucsd.edu> on behalf of David Kellogg <dkellogg60@gmail.com><mailto:dkellogg60@gmail.com>
Reply-To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Date: Wednesday, 8 April 2020 at 7:09 am
To: "eXtended Mind, Culture, Activity" <xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu><mailto:xmca-l@mailman.ucsd.edu>
Subject: [Xmca-l] Re: General check-in?

Helena--

Situation in China, courtesy my sister-in-law: life in Beijing is pretty much back to normal at least on the face of it. People are going out to their work units (but there is more work from home than before the crisis). Classes still largely taught from ZOOM. My nephew is in Shanghai, where the situation is somewhat tighter (proximity to Wuhan). Wuhan opened up for real yesterday--people can leave (I lived there for two years in the mid-eighties, but I can barely recognize what I see on the news now....) I have students in Chengdu (who attend my class via ZOOM). People are mostly shopping on line with delivery to the gate of the housing unit rather than to their flat (as we do here in Korea). Air quality better than it's been in decades.

Situation here in South Korea: We just extended our lockdown for another two weeks. This is in response to a few days of new infections over a hundred, but the infections are mostly (80%) Koreans from the US and Europe who want to live in a place where the medical system has not broken down or is not in the process of breaking down. There are still some "hotspots" of community transmission, but these are almost all connected with churches or PC cafes. Schools reopen on the 16th, but only online. We have elections in a week, and there is a lot of campaigning going on, including the usual street based campaigning (the right wing opposition campaigns around the curious notion that the government has done absolutely nothing, and the government ignores everybody who is not an actual virus). People shop in stores, and there is no panic buying or disruption of supply chains. The main changes in economic life seem to have to do with transport, and it seems like this too will be permanent (electric scooters are everywhere now). Bowing instead of shaking hands is really not a bad idea, and coffee-shops always were over-rated and over-priced....

But what about you, Helena? (One of the things I have learned on this list is that you get more or less what you give--people tend to use what you write as a model for writing back!) Are you still in Vietnam? Your address says Berkeley and your email says Illinois--those are three very different venues for the virus and the economy. Can you give us a brief account of the situation in each?

Stay safe, wherever you are!

David Kellogg

Sangmyung University

Book Review: 'Fees, Beets, and Music: A critical perusal of Critical Pedagogy and Marx, Vygotsky and Freire: Phenomenal forms and  educational action research

in Mind Culture and Activity

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/NpbJC3lJV7CprvREUjJjOa?domain=tandfonline.com>

Some free e-prints available at:

https://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/QBBGIZNKAHPMM4ZVCWVX/full?target=10.1080/10749039.2020.1745847<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/EJYKC48KGgtBwx7vUzV4Du?domain=tandfonline.com>

New Translation with Nikolai Veresov: "L.S. Vygotsky's Pedological Works Volume One: Foundations of Pedology"

 https://www.springer.com/gp/book/9789811505270<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/BTf8C580KjtZr1WDCAgtDN?domain=springer.com>

On Wed, Apr 8, 2020 at 4:30 AM Martin Packer <mpacker@cantab.net<mailto:mpacker@cantab.net>> wrote:

Hi Helena,

I share your concerns. And, despite its challenges, this situation seems a great opportunity to apply our distributed expertise(s). I tried to get some discussion going in a group concerned with the Anthropocene, but people seemed disinclined.

Martin

Here’s the first message that I sent…

The current situation is producing important evidence about the probable consequences of the strategies proposed to mitigate climate change. Satellites are showing significant reductions in pollution:

https://www.space.com/italy-coronavirus-outbreak-response-reduces-emissions-satellite-images.html<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/kUREC66VKkCr4JGBSDsTMo?domain=space.com>

Experts are suggesting that as a result the coronavirus may save more lives than it takes:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2020/03/11/coronavirus-lockdown-may-save-more-lives-from-pollution-and-climate-than-from-virus/#4a39bb3c5764<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/mQd3C76JVlCABYWJs4nkH-?domain=forbes.com>

So when skeptics ask “How can you know that reducing air travel will help with climate change?” there is now clear evidence with which to answer them.

Also in China:

https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2020/03/04/811019032/why-chinas-air-has-been-cleaner-during-the-coronavirus-outbreak<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/uVjPC8qYKmU6ygwKtV93yh?domain=npr.org>

At the same time, I am starting to wonder whether the current health guidelines regarding coronvirus are culturally biased. Can they work in ‘collectivist’ cultures (to use the shorthand)? The CDC guidelines, for example, include the recommendations to “Stay home when you are sick,” but also that other members of the household should “Avoid close contact with people who are sick” and should “Choose a room in your home that can be used to separate sick household members from those who are healthy. Identify a separate bathroom for the sick person to use, if possible.”

This advice is simply not practicable for many households in Colombia. There are not enough rooms; there is no second bathroom. In addition, many infants and young children here are cared for by grandparents, or even great-grandparents (many women here have a baby when young, so an infant may have a grandmother who is in her late 30s and a great-grandmother in her late 50s). The evidence shows that children don’t become very ill, but they do get infected and they can infect other people, among whom elderly caregivers will be the most at risk.

So I don’t think social distance and auto-quarantine will work in Colombia. Consider what the Chinese did: they went door-to-door to identify infected family members and removed them to massive collective quarantine setttings. People in the West considered this to be draconian, even cruel. But it made sense: much more cross-infection occurred in Chinese homes than in places like restaurants.

Unless the authorities can come up with strategies that are more appropriate to local circumstances and practices, there is likely to be a rapid and elevated peak of infections in Latin American countries.

And I see there is a related point here, on ageism:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/03/200313155256.htm<https://protect-za.mimecast.com/s/NZ11C98XYntkwjYpuwt4Zj?domain=sciencedaily.com>

On Apr 7, 2020, at 1:56 PM, Helena Worthen <helenaworthen@gmail.com<mailto:helenaworthen@gmail.com>> wrote:

Hello, XMCA-ers -

I don’t remember ever having read that this list was going to shut down or even be allowed to fade away. So now I’m writing, as if in the dark, to the whole list.  We’ve now got a major — maybe “the” major crisis of the anthropocene on our hands and the distant but connected network represented by the conversations on this list seem to me to be a treasure more precious than gold - and I’m not speaking metaphorically.

I am concerned about some of the people who have been pillars and resources on his list, people whom I have reached out to over the years and heard back from with information and perspectives that I would never have been able to access on my own. Where are you now? What are you doing? Are you safe and healthy? Do you have information about friends who are unable to read or respond to this request?

I hope to hear some responses to this message.

Take care of yourselves, please —

Helena

Helena Worthen

hworthen@illinois.edu<mailto:hworthen@illinois.edu>

21 San Mateo Road, Berkeley, CA 94707

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