The Testing Database as Pandemic Technology: Reflections on the COVID-19 Response in India

This article examines the COVID-19 response in India, viewing it as deeply enmeshed in the dynamics of the ‘database’ as an emerging technology of governmentality. Databases aim to translate entire populations into units of information abstracted from social identities and local specificities. In th...

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Autores principales:	Sreya Dutta Chowdhury, Riona Basu
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	University of Edinburgh Library 2021
Materias:	data trouble databases governmentality provincialisation Anthropology GN1-890 Medicine (General) R5-920
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/fe8c3f6eb5004e8cb042a1f4216318a7
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:fe8c3f6eb5004e8cb042a1f4216318a72021-11-08T12:34:28ZThe Testing Database as Pandemic Technology: Reflections on the COVID-19 Response in India2405-691X10.17157/mat.8.2.5105https://doaj.org/article/fe8c3f6eb5004e8cb042a1f4216318a72021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.medanthrotheory.org/article/view/5105https://doaj.org/toc/2405-691XThis article examines the COVID-19 response in India, viewing it as deeply enmeshed in the dynamics of the ‘database’ as an emerging technology of governmentality. Databases aim to translate entire populations into units of information abstracted from social identities and local specificities. In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, bureaucratic state systems attempt to manage and respond to the health crisis via databases collating testing data across the country. Problematising COVID-19 testing databases, we delve into the logic of database governance. We find that as a tool of governance the database falters in its attempts to compress complex identities and locations into de-contextualised units of information. As the complexity of lived reality interrupts the logic of databasing, state discourse on ‘unintended consequences’, ‘leakages’, ‘duplication’, and ‘reconciliation’ processes in the management of databases abounds and the ambivalence of databases becomes manifest in the COVID-19 response. In this article, we use secondary data to understand how testing databases intervene and interact with complex realities to establish bureaucratic order around a pandemic. We posit that COVID-19 testing databases should be understood as being embedded in emerging database governmentalities that supplant care of the population with the maintenance of databases.Sreya Dutta ChowdhuryRiona BasuUniversity of Edinburgh Libraryarticledata troubledatabasesgovernmentalityprovincialisationAnthropologyGN1-890Medicine (General)R5-920ENMedicine Anthropology Theory, Vol 8, Iss 2, Pp 1-29 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	data trouble databases governmentality provincialisation Anthropology GN1-890 Medicine (General) R5-920
spellingShingle	data trouble databases governmentality provincialisation Anthropology GN1-890 Medicine (General) R5-920 Sreya Dutta Chowdhury Riona Basu The Testing Database as Pandemic Technology: Reflections on the COVID-19 Response in India
description	This article examines the COVID-19 response in India, viewing it as deeply enmeshed in the dynamics of the ‘database’ as an emerging technology of governmentality. Databases aim to translate entire populations into units of information abstracted from social identities and local specificities. In the context of the coronavirus pandemic, bureaucratic state systems attempt to manage and respond to the health crisis via databases collating testing data across the country. Problematising COVID-19 testing databases, we delve into the logic of database governance. We find that as a tool of governance the database falters in its attempts to compress complex identities and locations into de-contextualised units of information. As the complexity of lived reality interrupts the logic of databasing, state discourse on ‘unintended consequences’, ‘leakages’, ‘duplication’, and ‘reconciliation’ processes in the management of databases abounds and the ambivalence of databases becomes manifest in the COVID-19 response. In this article, we use secondary data to understand how testing databases intervene and interact with complex realities to establish bureaucratic order around a pandemic. We posit that COVID-19 testing databases should be understood as being embedded in emerging database governmentalities that supplant care of the population with the maintenance of databases.
format	article
author	Sreya Dutta Chowdhury Riona Basu
author_facet	Sreya Dutta Chowdhury Riona Basu
author_sort	Sreya Dutta Chowdhury
title	The Testing Database as Pandemic Technology: Reflections on the COVID-19 Response in India
title_short	The Testing Database as Pandemic Technology: Reflections on the COVID-19 Response in India
title_full	The Testing Database as Pandemic Technology: Reflections on the COVID-19 Response in India
title_fullStr	The Testing Database as Pandemic Technology: Reflections on the COVID-19 Response in India
title_full_unstemmed	The Testing Database as Pandemic Technology: Reflections on the COVID-19 Response in India
title_sort	testing database as pandemic technology: reflections on the covid-19 response in india
publisher	University of Edinburgh Library
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/fe8c3f6eb5004e8cb042a1f4216318a7
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The Testing Database as Pandemic Technology: Reflections on the COVID-19 Response in India

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