The Pandemic Situation: Health Security and the Politics of Epidemiological Data (C12 (ehem. A08))

• Subject Area: Sociological Theory
• Term: since 2018
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 227068724

The sub-project analyses media technologies of quantification that played a key role in the apparatus of health security during the COVID-19 pandemic: first, data graphics that assemble statistical numbers, indicators and metrics to provide situational awareness in “real-time”; and second, simulation models to calculate future scenarios of infection dynamics based on the adoption of particular public health measures. The project elaborates the political epistemology of health security enshrined in both technologies: How do they frame the pandemic situation in terms of security while inscribing themselves into this situation as operative devices in order to act on it?

• DFG Programme: CRC/Transregios
• Subproject of: TRR 138: Dynamics of Security. Processes of Securitization in historical perspective
• Applicant Institution: Philipps-Universität Marburg
• Project Heads: Professor Dr. Sven Opitz; Leon Wolff, since 1/2022