Sistema Regional de Información
en línea para Revistas Científicas de América Latina,
el Caribe, España y Portugal

This article presents the results of research on the effect of the coronavirus pandemic on the medical equipment industry in Argentina, focusing on the province of Buenos Aires. It is presented as a case study that contributes to generate reflections about the complex connection between the different dimensions of the concept of development. The concept of development has been widely used in sociology and economics, but the discipline of International Relations ignored it for a long time frame. Therefore, from an international perspective, questions on development remained in the area of international economics and development studies. In Latin America, the first genuinely peripheral approach to development, structuralism, emerged also from the field of economics to discuss modernization theories. It promoted a new approach to development and industrialization to overcome the so-called underdevelopment of the region. Its central conceptual tool, dependency, was considered a fundamental pillar for Latin American International Relations and International Political Economy. The discipline of International Relations expanded its scope, while the concept of development increasingly included other dimensions that were not strictly economic, such as health. The end of the Cold War implied an important challenge for considerations about the concept and the United Nations promoted a human development approach. This had practical effects which, for example, conditioned development cooperation: the percentage of official development aid allocated to the health sector between 1995-2000 and 2007-2011 went from 7 to 13%. This gave greater visibility to health in different reports and international meetings, such as the Commission on Health Research for Development or the Project on Priority Medical Devices of the World Health Organization, which drew attention to the incompatibilities of modern and technologically complex products and the (human, technological and infrastructure) resources available in low-income countries. This was followed by a series of publications on public policies, innovation, regulations, use, priorities and even conditions for the donations of medical equipment. When the pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus was declared, the WHO issued its list of priority medical devices for this illness, which served as a reference for the governments of the affected countries. However, the availability of these devices in regions, countries and local communities was highly uneven. At the international level, the demand for medical equipment increased notably, while different countries established export bans on those devices that were in short supply. Access to these resources became an indicator of the relative success or failure of countries in caring for the health of their citizens. The pandemic thus reinforced a certain homogenization in the priority given to medical products as indicators of development. Yet, at the same time, it generated opportunities to discuss their pertinence and relevance. In this context, the supply capacity of these products in Argentina was at the center of concerns and facilitated a multiplication of policies to support the sector, as well as public-private initiatives for the production of medical equipment, both to face the pandemic and to strengthen this industrial sector in the future. The potential capacities of this sector, which until then had not been the target of specific policies, became evident. However, at the same time, a series of limiting factors were identified, linked to the country's position in the global medical equipment industry and to the structural economic difficulties that the country has historically faced. This situation generated interest in more in-depth studies on the sector. Therefore, this article presents the characteristics of this sector in Argentina, and, in particular, the province of Buenos Aires, as well as the effects of the pandemic on it. The main part of the medical equipment industry is housed in this province. Buenos Aires represents 50% of the total manufacturing activity in the country. It is also the most populated province and this population has, at the same time, a wide margin of unsatisfied needs. In this analysis, questions about the convergence between the industrial and health dimensions, the role of public policies dedicated to one or the other, and the relevance of dedicating (material and/or human) public resources to an industrial sector, became evident. The goods produced by this sector may be a way of improving health, but they are neither the only way nor the sufficient means to do it; the social determinants of health have been widely recognized. Therefore, this case study recalls that, although the notion of development exceeds the industrial dimension, the exploration of the link between it and others, such as the health dimension, is complex and necessary. To start this exploration, the research is carried out using a qualitative methodology, through bibliographic and documentary analysis, as well as in-depth interviews and statistical data. The article starts by synthesizing the main dimensions that formed part of the concept of development since the second post-war period, concentrating on the role given to industry and health in its evolution. It identifies the structuralist approach as a tool to understand the place of the Argentine industry in the structure of the global medical equipment market, concentrated in a few companies and countries that generate a large part of the production, sales and technology of the sector. It also identifies the circular way in which human development has conceived the relationship between health and economic development, underlining the role of social debate to define the priority each society gives to one or the other. In a second section, the paper synthesizes the characteristics of the medical equipment industry at a global level to facilitate locating the Argentine industry in this global structure. Finally, it presents the characteristics of the sector in Argentina, with a particular focus on the province of Buenos Aires: a marginal sector in terms of industrial income, which registers historical trade deficit and which, at the same time, shows potential industrial capacities in terms of innovation, technology and human resources. The effects of the pandemic for this sector were limited in terms of its economic indicators and historical industrial structure, but substantial in terms of visibility of the sector on the political agenda, which generated the mentioned opportunity to discuss the relevance and pertinence of dedicating public resources to foster it. In his way, the reflections triggered by the analysis of this specific case aim to enrich the research agenda of International Relations, in particular by encouraging debate on the relationship between health, industry and development.  

This research starts from the situation generated by the pandemic in 2022 in the Schengen area. Paradoxically, a few days before the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Schengen area, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the outbreak of Coronavirus, a global pandemic which forced the closure of most European borders. What seemed to be a guaranteed right, freedom of movement, was suspended in order to control the pandemic. The decisions taken by states unilaterally generated complex derivations in the framework of complex interdependence within which the European Union operates. National measures, far from guaranteeing the four fundamental freedoms, highlighted the discrepancies and lack of integration in this area. The temporary restrictions on free movement indirectly signified the proclamation that public health and those freedoms cannot coexist in critical situations, eliminating any pretense of EU leadership. Transnational relations, which on the one hand led to the increasing interconnectedness of societies, on the other hand also resulted in the restriction of states’ foreign policy spaces for action. This has led to the emergence of international governance, a model that has a strong influence on the development and functioning of the EU. Most EU Member States reacted quickly to the risk of the exponential spread of the coronavirus and adopted stringent preventive measures that culminated in unprecedented restrictions on the free movement of persons within the EU, with important consequences for the functioning of the internal market. The narrative of Europe as a market power emerges as an alternative. The normative approach to European identity assumes that the very nature of the EU as a market predisposes it to use its economic capabilities as a foreign policy tool. Thus, an approach that emphasizes this fact will be analytically more appropriate than an approach based on the normative identity of the Union. This points to the gestation of a new form of global governance and the design of new mechanisms for cooperation between states in the framework of interdependence and could be seen as a starting point for the debate on whether interfering in the internal market with restrictions and prohibitions on mobility was a reasonable alternative for member states to take, considering other competing interests. That is, whether the situation generated by the pandemic justified the degree of interference with free movement within the EU. The European system of governance, the most developed in contemporary international relations, showed many weaknesses and even a regression during the pandemic; that is, to a pre-eminently intergovernmental process, led by the most powerful EU countries. The EU’s international cooperation systems, mechanisms and instruments must lay the foundations for a new agenda adapted to the reality of a post-Covid multipolar and interdependent world. This article is organized in three parts. The first part focuses on situating the concept of interdependence in both traditional and contemporary International Relations. This interdependence is generated for different reasons, each of which specifically defines the model to be followed by states in their transnational relations. The progressive redistribution of global power towards multipolarity and the deepening of interdependence between states have given rise to a transition towards interpolarity in which cooperation/integration, multilateralism and the role of the great powers or polarity occupy a prominent place. This is due to the increase in the number, quality and nature of the different interconnections that, at the international level, take place between different types of actors. Once the concept of interdependence has been placed in a global framework, the impact of this phenomenon on the Schengen area will be studied as an element common to all Member States, but for which different solutions were offered. The temporary suspension of the Schengen area affected the four fundamental freedoms and, although some were affected more than others, there is no doubt about its impact on European systems. This impact, far from being gauged by the European Union as an organization, was managed unilaterally by the states that persisted in their isolationist attitude, reinforcing the scarce integration that the Schengen area has always experienced but which was necessary in this context. The difference in scope and rigidity of national travel restrictions and bans resulted in a spectrum of diverse and sometimes inconsistent restrictions across the Union. As an example, most entry bans to national territories contained exceptions for domestic nationals and residents: some provided exceptions for nationals, residents, and persons confirmed negative for Covid-19, whereas others offered exceptions to nationals, residents, and persons entering the national territory for valid reasons. The second part of our research focuses on a qualitative analysis of the restrictions in the Schengen area and whether the interdependence experienced in this area and its lack of integration favour or harm the EU’s behaviour on the international stage. Member States justified all travel restrictions –including entry and exit bans to and from national territories– on public health grounds. In this sense, the removal of multilevel governance elements in different EU policy areas elevated issues originally from the European framework to the international level without considering their long-term impact. Thus, some EU covid-19 measures, such as the severe restrictions on free movement that affected refugee and asylum rights during the pandemic showed that the terms of solidarity underpinning the framework for the implementation of refugee and asylum rights in the EU, which does not go beyond the national level, are not commensurate with the real need for concrete solutions in this area. The human rights implications of all these border closures are alarming and put at serious risk vulnerable populations that should be protected by these national and international legal obligations. With regards to the internal aspect, the Schengen area is a space where interdependence between states is clearly visible in such obvious and important areas as global trade in goods and services, capital transfers, and information connectivity, thanks to the Internet and social networks. For example, we see that during the Covid-19 pandemic, there was a direct link between, for example, the suspension of the Schengen area, the health systems of the Member States, and the health systems of the EU Member States.  

The objective of this paper is to carry out a critical reflection on the idea of a post-pandemic world, based on the deconstruction of discursive genealogies on the Covid-19 pandemic. First of all, attention is drawn to the fact that the countries of the Global North, apparently better prepared to face this crisis, have experienced a severe impact, particularly in the so-called first wave. This fact becomes even more relevant if we consider that the different indices that predicted a better capacity of these countries to face this type of crisis were initially distorted by the cases of Italy and Spain and, later, by other Global North countries such as the United States. To carry out these discursive genealogies, Michel Foucault's idea of the history of the present was used as a starting point, in terms of the deconstruction of the stories that account for both the novelty, in this case of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the discursive inertias of the past that survive in the discourses on the representations and the government of this type of phenomena. Five discursive genealogies on the pandemic were deconstructed. In the first place, the problem of the definition of a pandemic was addressed, based on the crisis of influenza A, swine flu or H1N1 and the criticism made by the Council of Europe in 2010 of the declaration of a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO). Secondly, we reflected on the impact that the management of the H1N1 crisis had on the representations and discursive practices of the Covid-19 pandemic. The dissonance between the low impact of this crisis and the high spending by the countries of the Global North marked the initial management of the Covid-19 crisis, particularly in terms of reducing the perception of insecurity and the overvaluation of capacities. It became evident how the story of the impact of the crisis in Italy and Spain deeply marked the representations that were initially held about this crisis. Third, the interpretive and epistemological frameworks of the governance of pandemic crises in societies of the Global North were discussed. Due to its discursive interest, we analyzed, on the one hand, the discursive construction of the government of epidemics, considering the ideas of confinement and vaccination and, on the other hand, the government of vital infrastructures, such as the origin of the use of the metaphor of war to the governance of risks and threats in these societies. Fourth, we reflected on the discourse of (in)security and its pragmatic difficulties in governing this type of crisis. The idea of pragmatic dissonance is used to account for the problems of the security discourse. In fifth place, the global health discourse and its implications in this crisis were criticized. The survival of colonial and neocolonial narratives in global health, the weakening of the WHO due to the incorporation of interests of private actors such as multilateral agencies, banks linked to development discourses, multinational corporations and philanthropic companies were highlighted. The relevance of the biotechnological and biomedical discourse was also evident, based on the idea of the magic bullet. The critique of the global health discourse had three stories or narratives as its central reference: the story about global health security, the story about the market for sensitive products, such as personal protective equipment (masks), and the story about the production of vaccines. The problematization of the discursive genealogies related to the Covid-19 crisis made it possible to highlight the great difficulties we currently have in building a discourse that gives intelligibility to this type of crisis, especially from a global perspective. This difficulty allowed us to propose, by way of conclusion, the idea of the chronicle of a global failure (everything that could go wrong finally did go wrong), in relation to the government of the Covid-19 crisis, from the idea of the infelicity of the speech act proposed by Austin. This chronicle has been aggravated by the emergence of a new crisis, the war in Ukraine. We also propose the irruption of a disaster capitalism whose discursive performativity in relation to the pandemic was felicity, which is to say they achieved what they wanted: to significantly increase their profits. Finally, we propose as an alternative a reconstruction of the virus-centric discourse, which has permeated the discourse of experts, proposing the idea of a discourse based on territorial spatiality and symbolically constituted, organized, configured and materialized by multiple technologies of meaning, linked under the figure of a network of actors proposed by Bruno Latour. The virus is one more actor in this human and non-human network. What the virus does is expose the power relationships (knowledge/power) that account for the way this network is configured. More than the virus, it is these power relations that account for the vulnerabilities we experience due to the Covid-19 crisis. Everything seems to indicate that the new discursive practices in relation to this type of crisis should point in this direction.  

Review of: Wenham, C. (2021). Feminist Global Health Security. Oxford University Press, 288 p.

The development of emotional competencies has become a priority in the educational field at all levels, as it allows improving the aspirational level of university students, in addition to allowing an efficient development of their learning strategies. From this point of view, the main objective of this research was to determine the connection between emotional competencies and self-regulated learning in a sample of general studies students at Norbert Wiener University. A non-experimental correlational design was achieved, with a sample of 344 subjects, to whom two questionnaires were applied to evaluate each of the variables. These instruments were evaluated and the statistical results showed consistent levels of validity and reliability. The data that was produced was processed statistically and it was limited that the variables were found to be significantly linked (r = 0.67 p < .001), so the first research hypothesis was accepted. The specific analyzes show that the areas of both variables are also significantly linked, which is why it is concluded that all the specific hypotheses that were formulated are accepted in the present investigation.

Doctoral training is the integrating nucleus not only of substantive university processes (teaching, research and extension) but also of the different forms of postgraduate and guarantor of university quality and, especially, of higher education graduates; hence the need to achieve a more efficient and effective management of this process. The objective of this paper is to identify the factors that limit the management of the doctoral training process at the University of Pinar del Río "Hermanos Saíz Montes de Oca", the University of Cienfuegos and the University of Oriente. Empirical and theoretical research methods were used, as well as the integration of quantitative-qualitative methods and techniques (interview, survey), whose results were triangulated to make the final assessments. The main barriers that limit the management of the doctoral training process in the universities studied are: there is no systematic monitoring of the doctoral training strategy in the areas/departments; lack of objectivity in preparing the doctoral training plan; insufficient communication between the faculty of the doctoral program and the immediate superiors of the doctoral students; little feedback with doctoral program coordinators and doctoral committees; The alliances established between the tutors of different administrative areas/institutions based on the progress of the doctoral student in their research process are not enough; The organization of doctoral students and tutors in research groups and projects is still insufficient; as well as the actions that are carried out based on the internationalization of doctoral training.

In this article, a study was carried out on the pedagogical training of the teachers of the Provincial Center of Genetics who teach the genetic médical subject and work as teachers of the students of the University of Médical Sciences of Pinar del Rio in order to transmit their professional experiences. In this sense, the main objective of the article was to characterize the current state of the training process for the pedagogical training of teachers of the provincial center of Genetics. The investigative process was carried out on a dialectical-materialist basis and methods were used at the theoretical level, at the empirical and statistical-mathematical level, such as: historical and logical, the system approach, modeling, analysis and synthesis, analysis documentary, observation, survey, interview, and descriptive statistics, percentage analysis, the methodological triangulation technique was used, which allowed the diagnosis of the educational reality. For the development of the diagnosis, we worked with a sample made up of 15 teachers from the provincial center of Genetics; 3 directors of Genetics. The results obtained allowed us to verify the strengths and weaknesses that characterize the current state of the pedagogical training process of the teachers of the provincial center of Genetics, necessary premises for the search for solutions that allow improving said process.

The main aim of this work is to understand the experiences of racism among the Haitian migrant community in Chile, from an intersectional perspective. We focus on their oppressive experiences, as well as their resistance to these experiences. We carried out a qualitative study with 16 Haitian people (10 men and 6 women), between 21 and 44 years old, living in Santiago de Chile, with whom we conducted a total of 29 semi-structured in-depth interviews. We carried out a thematic content analysis from an intersectional perspective. Our results show that our participants have experienced structural racism, overt prejudice and internalized racism. Skin colour appears as the most important racial marker, and is articulated with their nationalities, migrant status and/or sex-gender. Also, we account for the phenomenon of sexualized racialization towards Haitian men. Finally, we describe resistances, some of which show a knowledge about the positive socio-historical positions of Haitian individuals. Thus, we investigate resistant and incipient social identities configured around skin colour and Haitian nationality. As suggestions for future research, we believe it is relevant to extend the study of racism in Chile from the field of international migration, taking into account the racialized structures within which racism is exercised towards migrants, as well as towards indigenous people, Afro-Chileans or dark-skinned mestizo Chileans. With this work, we seek to highlight the presence and consequences of racism in Chile, and promote the integral integration of the Haitian community.

The present research aimed to describe the type of stimulation at home and the levels of pandemic stress perceived in primary caregivers during the COVID-19 context; as well as evaluating the possible association between the aforementioned variables. The sample consisted of 304 Argentine primary caregivers of children from 0 to 12 years old (M age = 6,23 years, SD = 3,44 years, male = 136). An ad hoc sociodemographic questionnaire, an ad hoc Home Stimulation Questionnaire and the SISCO Pandemic Stress Inventory (ISEP; Macías, 2020) were administered. It was found that TV and the Internet were the most used devices by infants (2 to 4 hours a day). In turn, a positive association was found between overcrowding and higher levels of pandemic stress, the latter predominantly in families living with a person at risk, were themselves at risk or had difficulty sleeping. It is concluded that one must work with the type of content and the amount of time that infants are exposed to technological devices, and with the possible stress that may arise from families where there are people belonging to the risk group.

This study aimed at deepening into the internal structure's analysis of the Argentinean Scale of Suicidality, Youth version—ASSY-I Screening—. The 6-factor model obtained in a previous exploratory factor study was tested via confirmatory factor analysis, and further compared with an alternative second-order model. The factorial invariance was examined using the self-perceived gender as a splitting variable. The factors' internal consistency was analysed in the whole sample and in two subsamples comprising exclusively men and women. The scores' stability-reliability was examined using a test-retest analysis. The sample was composed of 632 students with ages between 13 and 21 years old (M = 17.88, SD = 2.16; 64.08% women, 35.92% men). Results showed evidence favouring the robustness of the ASSY-I model as well as the likelihood of generalising it across groups in the local population of young students. Findings are discussed regarding further uses of the scale in the professional field.