SSC Virtual Seminar Series: Alex Luscombe, University of Toronto

Alex Luscombe

COVID-19 and the `Policification` of Public Health Policy in Canada

Wednesday, November 17, 2021


12:30 – 2:00 pm

*We will send the seminar link and password to registered participants.

Please RSVP to Joan Sharpe


Abstract:

In the fall of 2019, the world saw the emergence and global spread of a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) capable of causing acute respiratory syndrome (COVID-19) in humans. Alongside biomedical interventions like vaccination, governments around the world have sought to control the spread of the virus through various social, political, and economic means. One such non-biomedical intervention has been to expand the powers and responsibilities of policing agents in Canada, a case of what Andrew Millie calls “policification”. In April 2020, the Policing the Pandemic Mapping Project was launched in Canada to track, visualize, and understand the scale and scope of policing activities aimed at controlling the spread of COVID-19 across Canada. The project aims to bring to light COVID-19 related patterns of policing intervention to help understand who is being targeted, what justifications are being used by public and private police, and how marginalized people are being impacted.



About the speaker:

Alex Luscombe is a PhD Candidate in criminology at the University of Toronto. He conducts research on policing and social control, data justice and information politics, and computational social science. In April 2020, he co-launched the Policing the Pandemic Mapping Project in partnership with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association (www.policingthepandemic.ca).

Everyone welcome!

For more information about our seminars, please visit: https://www.sscqueens.org/events/seminar-series