History of Diseases and production of spaces

The Editorial Board of Espacialidades Journal invites the academic community to submit papers for the dossier: History of Diseases and production of spaces.

The history studies have shown that diseases accompanied all human societies at different times and places. In some cases, diseases have already caused devastation to humanity as much as wars and other natural catastrophes. For example: The Plague of Athens (430 BC); the Plague of Justino (541 – 549); the Bubonic Plague, commonly known as the Black Death (1347 -1351); and all cycles of epidemic outbreaks of influenza and pandemic viruses, from 1510, 1889, 1918 and the current experience with COVID-19. Seasonal diseases and pandemics have caused changes in the ways in which different human group relate to each other at a given in history, as well as changing the way these societies organize its spaces.

The societies spaces are organized by itself, based on the economy, politics, religion, culture, demographic density, social structure, techniques, diseases, etc. In these terms, like the Chinese-American geographer Yi-Fu Tuan said, we accept that space is a human construction. However, the concept of space cannot be thought of only as a setting for social relations, static, immobile, but it must be like as a dialectical. In this way, it is important to think about how humanity acts in space, but also how space influences humanity.

In this sense, the goal of this thematic dossier “History of diseases and the production of spaces” is to publish research that explores the relation between spaces and the different diseases throughout the periods of human history. We’re calling for papers that deals with pathologies that changed the social dynamics and its aspects, in the political, cultural, educational, economic, religious, among others; papers that approaches the connection between migratory movements of different human groups and diseases; that analyze how the states treated the disease problem, whether in the creation of public policies (health legislation, hygienist, eugenic, quarantine and social isolation) or in the construction of different spaces for treatment, cure or segregation of patients such as Asclepion (healing temples in ancient Greece), leprosariums, sanitariums, asylums, hospitals, cemeteries, morgues, among others; and researches that deals with the issue of teaching in times of social isolation; the association between society, diseases and the different spaces created for the treatment, cure and segregation of the sick, as well as the various form of social interactions in times of crisis caused by epidemics or pandemics, allows a reflection of the human understanding of health and your social body.

The first volume of 2021 of Espacialidades Journal will publish papers dealing with the between history and diseases, all these themes dealing with the scope of the Journal, that approaches the most myriad contents and methods that pervade all spatialities, activities related to hygiene, quarantine, social stigmas and rituals of healing and purification of body and soul. It will be accepted articles of other themes that has spatiality as a central concept (territory, space, place, landscape, displacement, domain, border, horizon, etc.) and its relation with time and human agents. In addition, reviews, translations and transcriptions from sources that includes spatial categories will be accepted.

Deadline for submissions: July 25, 2020.

For more informations: https://periodicos.ufrn.br/espacialidades or especialidades@gmail.com