Mobilizing the Transnational History of Knowledge Flows. COVID-19 and the Politics of Research at the Borders

Sabina Leonelli,John Krige

doi:10.1080/07341512.2021.1890524

Sabina Leonelli, John Krige

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1080/07341512.2021.1890524

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Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper mobilizes a transnational approach to intervene in the unfolding history of the Covid-19 pandemic, advocating for nationally based, interdependent initiatives that push back against the fragmentation of national responses and, eventually, national protectionism. Focusing on the governance of digital technologies for data sharing, and using two case studies as illustrations, we describe the emergence of transnational realms of scientific and political cooperation, that were structured to foster interdependence, to bypass insular nationalism, and to subvert digital feudalism. By critically reading these case studies through the lens of the transnational flows of knowledge across borders, we exploit the intellectual and political agendas embedded in this historiographic approach.

Highlights

Late in 2019 an unknown and highly infectious variant of the Corona virus was carried by a bat to a live-food market in Wuhan, China, from where it travelled undetected in human hosts across local, national, and international borders
Despite repeated and increasingly urgent warnings by the Director General of the World Health Organization (WHO) – on 30 January 2020, after a visit to China, he confirmed the importance of human-to-human transmission and declared ‘a public health emergency of international concern over the global outbreak of novel coronavirus’ – most governments chose to downplay, or even to deny the significance of the outbreak
Data sharing in the clinical realm was hampered by lack of adequate infrastructures, as in the attempt to analyze and compare clinical observational studies made between February and May 2020, where it became clear that there was no global agreement nor set of venues where people working on medical frontlines such as general practitioners (GPs) and hospital workers could share their observations

Summary

Introduction

Late in 2019 an unknown and highly infectious variant of the Corona virus was carried by a bat to a live-food market in Wuhan, China, from where it travelled undetected in human hosts across local, national, and international borders.

Results

Conclusion