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result(s) for
"Samimian-Darash, Limor"
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PRACTICING UNCERTAINTY
In this article, I analyze how the Turning Point scenario-based exercise works as a technology-based uncertainty, both in its conceptualization of the future and in its enactment. The Israeli preparedness exercise involves the activation of and reaction to a chosen event, one that does not replicate the past or attempt to predict the future. Though designed to challenge responders, the scenario does not represent a worst-case event but a plausible one. With this technology, the Israeli preparedness system is directed neither toward producing specific responses nor toward discovering the best solutions for an unknown future. Rather, the technology generates uncertainty through its execution, from which new problems are extracted. I examine both the discursive and the dispositional aspects of the Turning Point scenario, approaching it as a narrative put into action. I thus go beyond the conceptualization of the future underlying this technology and address how it practices uncertainty.
Journal Article
A pre-event configuration for biological threats: Preparedness and the constitution of biosecurity events
Drawing on an inquiry into Israel's preparedness for biological threats, in this article I suggest a new analysis of biosecurity events. A complex and dynamic assemblage emerges to prepare for biological threats, one that I call a \"pre-event configuration.\" The assemblage is composed of three core elements—the scientific element, the security element, and the public health element—each of which diagnoses threats and suggests appropriate solutions. This configuration also determines what will be perceived as an event for which preparation is needed and what will remain a nonevent. I maintain that the constitution of an event takes place beyond the actual time of its occurrence and is determined by the pre-event configuration in the \"time of event,\" Therefore, a comprehensive analysis of events should combine an examination of actual events and their aftermath with an inquiry into their potentialities as determined by the pre-event configuration.
Journal Article
Governing uncertainty, producing subjectivity: from Mode I to Mode II scenarios
Tracing the emergence of the scenario technology and key shifts in how it is used, we argue that scenarios represent a new way of governing future uncertainty. We analyse two of the most influential approaches to the technology—those of Herman Kahn and Pierre Wack. In the first, scenarios emerge as a solution to an ontological problem of future uncertainty—a solution that seeks to use imagination as a form of reasoning about the future (Mode I scenarios). In the second, however, scenarios appear as a solution to an epistemological problem—a way of challenging and changing perceptions, of remediating one’s perception of the world and accepting its uncertainty. That is, scenarios become a way of entering into an uncertain sensibility and a particular mode of experience and practice related to and centred on uncertainty—a new mode of subjectivation. We refer to this as Mode II scenarios.
Journal Article
Governing Future Potential Biothreats
Through analysis of preparedness for pandemic influenza in Israel, I explore how future uncertainty is conceptualized and the various practices put into action to deal with it. In particular, I discuss the emergence of a new type of uncertainty—potential uncertainty—and three technologies employed to cope with it: risk technology, preparedness technology, and event technology. Event technology emerges in the preparations for a potential uncertainty event—such as pandemic influenza. In contrast with the other two technologies, it acknowledges the problem of potential uncertainty and retains uncertainty through its action. Thus, uncertainty is not solely linked to the appearance of new risks in the world, which is the basis of the risk society approach (e.g., Beck 1992; Giddens 2000), nor is it related to the impossibility of calculating these risks, as the preparedness paradigm (e.g., Lakoff 2008) and science and technology studies argue. Rather, uncertainty underpins a technology through which the future, although not reducible to calculable forms, can still be governed. Employing the concept of potential uncertainty and considering the various technologies applied to management of the future allow for a more thorough discussion of problems of future uncertainty with which current societies are preoccupied.
Journal Article
Governing Heterogeneous Populations: 'Separate and Unequal' in Israel
Drawing on the Israeli 'Immanuel Affair' (also called the 'Israeli Brown Affair'), we examine the complex relationship between governmentality and population compositions. In the town of Immanuel, the State attempted to establish a homogeneous population of ultra-orthodox Jews by opening it to unrestricted settlement. Rather than homogeneity however, this strategy produced a divided community, whose Ashkenazi and Mizrahi residents barely interact, and the State responded by withdrawing from its governance. Contrary to the perception prevalent in the literature on governmentality, which refers to the governed population as a homogeneous body, this case invites inquiry into forms of governing in multi-population situations whose radical heterogeneity resists the State's homogenization attempts. We argue that examining governmentality through management of events (or Foucault's notion of 'the milieu') – like the Immanuel Affair – allows for greater appreciation of the interaction between complex governance mechanisms and heterogenic populations.
Journal Article
Unintended Securitization
In this article, we examine statements by state officials and individuals from the military and the medical establishment regarding the provision of medical aid by Israel to casualties from the Syrian Civil War. We argue discussions of this project have been characterized by three different discourses, each dominant at different times, which we classify as military, medical, and political-security. We propose “unintended securitization” to describe how the project moved from the military into the medical-civilian and then into the political sphere, and came to be seen as advancing the security interests of the Israeli state. We argue the relationship between humanitarianism and securitization seen here challenges the view that humanitarian apparatuses are often subordinated to military rationales by showing how securitization here emerged from the demilitarization of what was initially a military project.
Journal Article
Unintended Securitization
In this article, we examine statements by state officials and individuals from the military and the medical establishment regarding the provision of medical aid by Israel to casualties from the Syrian Civil War. We argue discussions of this project have been characterized by three different discourses, each dominant at different times, which we classify as military, medical, and political-security. We propose “unintended securitization” to describe how the project moved from the military into the medical-civilian and then into the political sphere, and came to be seen as advancing the security interests of the Israeli state. We argue the relationship between humanitarianism and securitization seen here challenges the view that humanitarian apparatuses are often subordinated to military rationales by showing how securitization here emerged from the demilitarization of what was initially a military project.
Journal Article
Governing Future Potential Biothreats
Through analysis of preparedness for pandemic influenza in Israel, I explore how future uncertainty is conceptualized and the various practices put into action to deal with it. In particular, I discuss the emergence of a new type of uncertainty-potential uncertainty-and three technologies employed to cope with it: risk technology, preparedness technology, and event technology. Event technology emerges in the preparations for a potential uncertainty event-such as pandemic influenza. In contrast with the other two technologies, it acknowledges the problem of potential uncertainty and retains uncertainty through its action. Thus, uncertainty is not solely linked to the appearance of new risks in the world, which is the basis of the risk society approach (e.g., Beck 1992; Giddens 2000), nor is it related to the impossibility of calculating these risks, as the preparedness paradigm (e.g., Lakoff 2008) and science and technology studies argue. Rather, uncertainty underpins a technology through which the future, although not reducible to calculable forms, can still be governed. Employing the concept of potential uncertainty and considering the various technologies applied to management of the future allow for a more thorough discussion of problems of future uncertainty with which current societies are preoccupied.
Journal Article