Future Now
The IFTF Blog
Jake Research Nut Cluster 1: 21st Century Quarantines
Jake #1, FIRST ROUND RESEARCH TEMPLATE
DISCIPLINES/TOPIC:
pandemics-quarantine-public health/technologies of extension (sensors, feedback, ambient communication)/network behavior and social contagions
(also: infection disease previews “the pre-sick”, preemptive quarantine, childhood environmental stress and adult disease, quarantining food)
HOW DOES IT ADDRESS “TRANSFORMING BODIES AND LIFESTYLES”
As we extend our bodies and increase the points of contact with other bodies and our world, we will come to view our environment as not only relevant to our health, but as an open and connected extension of our health and disease risk. This is a continuation of the trend to re-define the boundaries of personal and public health, now also resonating with movements toward a design orientation to life and the power of networks.
Take smoking for example, we see a strong policy movement to “contain” smoke and smokers in designated areas as well as research showing that prevalence of smoking (and quitting) is related to the behaviors of people in one’s social network.
"There's no doubt that people are influenced by the behaviors of individuals that are not just one degree of separation from them, but two and three degrees of separation. There's a kind of cascading influence," says Nicholas Christakis, a professor at Harvard Medical School and a co-author of the study
The health impact of our social networks (both virtual and physical), and what Deleuze calls the “crisis of enclosures” combined with the renewed relevance of quarantines in containing (again, both virtual and physical) contagions will reshape our relationships at the intersection of health, the built environment, and our virtual networks.
EXPERTS: (Max 6)
Geoff Manaugh, BldgBlog (architecture/urban planning/health)
Nicholas Cristakis, Harvard
WHICH GHE CATEGORY/IES:
(health, information, consumer electronics, food etc, just to have a sense of the most obvious domains of health, health care, and well-being we are researching)
EARLY WORKING HYPOTHESIS
(some sort of narrowing down the scope of your research, where you will be looking for directional change)
In early medicine, the direction and containment of flows (of humours, elements, vital liquids, etc) was the paradigm that shaped diagnosis and treatment. Then, a more mechanical and reductionist model took hold, and industrial medicine that treated the body as a machine—as a system with discreet parts—dominated health care. Now, we are seeing another large shift, in some ways back to the more ecological approach and the recognition of the importance of flows and exchanges, but also integrating models of the body as code or information, as well as new ecological models of adaptive learning systems.
Direction of flows as a tool of resilience.
At its most basic, quarantine is the creation of a hygienic boundary between two or more things, meant to protect one from exposure to the other. It is a spatial strategy of separation and containment, often invoked in response to suspicion, threat, and uncertainty.
The efficacy of building “walls” around our bodies, our buildings, or our cities is poor. Boundaries are becoming more porous. Yet, with the threat of pandemic viruses, and the increasing contact we have with more and more people, there has been a rebirth or reimaginging of quarantine and containment. The model of directing flows and points of contact now applies not only to the physical world, but to the virtual world as well. And in the virtual world, the subtle but significant impact of the behaviors, health, and wellness of our friends and contacts, even at several degrees of separation is causing a profound shift in how we view our own individual health, and the health of our networks.