 | Elisa Pieri Lecturer - The University of Manchester |
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02.07.2026-28.08.2026
Securitisation, Radical Uncertainty and Global Pandemics - A monograph
The key objective of my stay at Brocher Foundation is to write two chapters for this book. I plan to organise the book along these chapter headings and descriptors:
[PLEASE DO NOT DISTRIBUTE THE BOOK CONTENT INDEX BELOW EXTERNALLY/ON THE WEBSITE AS I NEED IT TO STAY CONFIDENTIAL UNTIL I SUBMIT IT TO PUBLISHERS IN EARLY 2026. MANY THANKS FOR YOUR UNDERSTANDING].
1. Contemporary discourses of risk, threat and vulnerability
2. Security – historical context; preparedness, resilience and all-hazard planning
3. Governing though fear: post 9/11 and states of exemption; acting pre-emptively; the security continuum
4. Security in the urban I: built environment and security by design
5. Security in the urban II: surveillance, virtual and networked databases, real-time and temporary geographical bans, hybridity and emergent policing practices
6. Securitising health and health emergencies, including securitizing against global pandemics
7. Social and ethical issues in preparedness and securitization; inequalities
8. Radical uncertainty and contested knowledge. Techno-science for managing the unknown (incl. simulations); avenues for better mitigation and for resistance to securitization.
[THE INFORMATION BELOW ON CHAPTERS 6, 7 AND 8 CAN BE DISTRIBUTED, IF NEEDED. THANK YOU].
As the Foundation supports work on ethical and social aspects of emergent technologies and bioethical debates, my research residency at Brocher Foundation would be focusing on writing the following two chapters:
Chapter 6. Securitising health and health emergencies, including securitizing against global pandemics
AND
Chapter 7. Social and ethical issues in preparedness and securitization; inequalities
OR
Chapter 8. Radical uncertainty and contested knowledge. Techno-science for managing the unknown.
Being located in Geneva at the Foundation will also enable me to disseminate my work to key stakeholders internationally, including through the engagement activities that the Foundation organises, such as the research workshop, which are also open to Geneva University scholars and practitioners and NGO personnel headquartered in Geneva. My participation in these events is a key objective for me in applying to come to Brocher. In the past, my participation in these activities resulted in fruitful collaborations (post-residency) – including, for example, guest teaching for the Netherlands School of Public and Occupational Health, a guest lecture at a clinical event, also organised by NSPOH Netherlands, and peer reviewing of research bids on Covid-19 for the Swiss National Science Foundation). On a smaller scale, in the past I also took part in a public engagement event for school-age children at Brocher Foundation (I had a session on pandemics) within the Summer Science Camp at Brocher Foundation, in 2019. These opportunities for wide ranging dissemination and for building links with other resident researchers are a key component that make the residency so appealing and valuable for me.
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03.07.2023-28.07.2023
COVID-2019: Ethical and Social Impacts of outbreak preparedness and response
The aim of my stay at the Bocher Foundation is to work on the ethical, legal and social implications of pandemic response and preparedness in the context of the current COVID-19 outbreak. Specifically, I would use my three month stay to write a book manuscript that discusses the ethical and social tensions that emerge in connection to pandemic response and pandemic planning too. My work will unpack the social and ethical impacts of the response to pandemic risk in the current COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, focusing particularly on the deployment of the containment and mitigation strategies, the international (WHO-led) mechanisms for collaboration and pulling of resources and expertise, and data sharing facilities, with a special focus on public facing and media-facing mechanism for knowledge sharing under conditions of radical uncertainty.
The manuscript builds on my funded pandemic research, and considers many interconnected dimensions, considering amongst others:
• the shifting knowledge base and the data sharing practices deployed
• the construction of COVID-19 related pandemic risk
• the measures implemented (from quarantine to cancelling of mass gathering or closing of schools)
• the impacts, including the perceptions of risk and of these measures and their effects
• public opinion and responses, including processes of stigmatisation
• and the mechanisms for decision making under radical uncertainty
The wider purpose of my work on pandemics is to draw attention to the social and ethical dimensions and impacts of preparedness, and therefore the Brocher book manuscript is going to be central to my argument that alongside medical and other expert knowledge, sociological knowledge also ought to inform the planning debate, not least because it can render explicit the values and priorities inbuilt in current preparedness strategies. It can help identify the ethical and social impacts of the mitigation planning measure proposed, and generate a better understanding of the (often unintended) social impacts resulting from the measure adopted during the COVID-19 outbreak, as well as those deployed during previous pandemics. Even more importantly, it can help identify more socially resilient solutions, which are not just clinically sound, but also socially robust and equitable.I expect the main outcome of my residency at the Brocher Foundation to be a completed book manuscript, ready for submission.
The risk of global pandemics is perceived as one of the most significant and imminent threats facing Western societies today. The recent COVID-19 outbreak has brought this realisation to the fore of public and policy opinion, as well as media attention, in a starker and more urgent fashion than the West African Ebola outbreak in 2014-15 was able to.
Ethical tensions arise in connection to outbreak response and, importantly, in view of pandemic planning too. Unlike what happened in the Ebola crisis, these ethical and social tensions are currently or soon likely to be experienced by the citizens of very many other countries, including in Europe too.
The outcome of my work on pandemics at the Brocher Foundation will be to draw attention to the social and ethical dimensions and impacts of preparedness; to build a strong argument that alongside medical and other expert knowledge, sociological knowledge also ought to inform the planning debate. This is because sociological knowledge can render explicit the values and priorities inbuilt in current preparedness strategies, it can help identify the ethical and social impacts of the mitigation planning measure proposed, and generate a better understanding of the (often unintended) social impacts resulting from the measure adopted during previous pandemics. Even more importantly, the aim of the paper is to contribute to identifying more socially resilient solutions, that are not just clinically sound, but also socially robust and equitable.
I also aim to benefit from being co-located within proximity of the WHO to be able to attend relevant events, if applicable during my stay. -
03.08.2021-30.08.2021
COVID-2019: Ethical and Social Impacts of outbreak preparedness and response
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01.07.2019-29.07.2019
Securing Cities Against Global Pandemics (Simon Fellowship Award, 2016-2019)
The aim of my stay at the Brocher Foundation is to work on the ethical, legal and social implications of pandemic response and preparedness. Specifically, I would use my stay to write an article that looks at the ethical and social tensions that are likely to arise in connection to pandemic response and, importantly, to pandemic planning too. The article would be based on my three year research, which considers the following dimensions:
• How is pandemic risk framed in media and policy discourse in the West? (theme A)
• What protocols and best practices are circulated in the West by international organisations? (theme B)
• Smarting up cities: what lessons from other cities (i.e. Singapore and Hong Kong) can be learnt? What are the implications of their implementation in the West? (theme C)
• Technoscience: what is the role of technology in securitising Western cities against pandemics today? (theme D)
• Vaccines: does vaccine research play a role in the securitisation of Western cities? (theme E)The article would draw on existing literature around pandemics, focusing in particular on four areas of concern, around (1) restriction to personal freedom (aka autonomy) vis a vis public protection, including concerns around the potential for discrimination and stigma; (2) duty of care for health professionals vis a vis a right to reciprocity; (3) fairness and equity in the setting of priorities and allocation of finite resources; (4) duty to exercise international cooperation and the global dimensions of pandemics.
In the article I will also review guidelines that are diffused by organisations at various level. Under the aegis of the WHO networks for infectious disease surveillance and response have been developed. Most nations, and certainly all Western nations, have developed plans to mitigate this risk. Although these plans may not always have been tested through simulations, and despite the declared intention of many national governments to cooperate and coordinate response internationally, these plans will shape response at national level.
The paper that I will complete at the Brocher Foundation will integrate the dimensions above with an analysis of the findings from my expert and elite interviews (both those that I have already conducted and those that I am to conduct in 2018) with a wide range of pandemic preparedness experts, medical and other professionals.
The wider purpose of my work on pandemics is to draw attention to the social and ethical dimensions and impacts of preparedness, and therefore the Brocher paper is going to be central to my argument that alongside medical and other expert knowledge, sociological knowledge also ought to inform the planning debate, not least because it can render explicit the values and priorities inbuilt in current preparedness strategies. It can help identify the ethical and social impacts of the mitigation planning measure proposed, and generate a better understanding of the (often unintended) social impacts resulting from the measure adopted during previous pandemics. Even more importantly, it can help identify more socially resilient solutions, that are not just clinically sound, but also socially robust and equitable.
The objective of the paper is also to showcase in a convincing and compelling way that it is important to involve members of the public, alongside all other stakeholders (from the medical professionals likely to be on the frontline of a potential emergency, to other service providers and emergency officers that will be called upon) in open and transparent debate over the planning that is ongoing, the setting of its priorities and the principles that ought to guide the allocation of scarce resources. Only an inclusive and sustained public engagement can contribute to ensure that both preparedness planning and the deployment decisions that are actually taken in the event of a pandemic are socially robust - procedurally fair and equitable, transparent and open to redress.
https://research.manchester.ac.uk/en/persons/elisa.pieri
https://www.routledge.com/Pandemics-The-Basics/Pieri/p/book/9780367610135
https://archive.discoversociety.org/2019/08/07/mitigating-against-the-threat-of-global-pandemics/
https://archive.discoversociety.org/2020/03/21/radical-uncertainty-sociology-and-the-social-impacts-of-pandemic-preparedness-on-citizens/
https://echalliance.com/event/the-next-pandemic-roundtable-event/
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