All Hands on Deck: Transdisciplinary Approaches to Emerging Infectious Disease

The increasing burden of emerging infectious diseases worldwide confronts us with numerous challenges, including the imperative to design research and responses that are commensurate to understanding the complex social and ecological contexts in which infectious diseases occur. A diverse group of scientists met in Hawaii in March 2005 to discuss the linked social and ecological contexts in which infectious diseases emerge. A subset of the meeting was a group that focused on ‘‘transdisciplinary approaches’’ to integrating knowledge across and beyond academic disciplines in order to improve prevention and control of emerging infections. This article is based on the discussions of that group. Here, we outline the epidemiological legacy that has dominated infectious disease research and control up until now, and introduce the role of new, transdisciplinary and systems-based approaches to emerging infectious diseases.Wedescribe four cases of transboundary health issues and use them to discuss the potential benefits, as well as the inherent difficulties, in understanding the social–ecological contexts in which infectious diseases occur and of using transdisciplinary approaches to deal with them.

David Ledesma Vázquez: la conciencia de ser abyecto (Crítica)

Este ensayo examina la obra poética del ecuatoriano David Ledesma Vázquez desde algunos conceptos teóricos propuestos por Kristeva y Butler, que permiten entender cómo se va consolidando una conciencia de ser abyecto ante el otro, y cómo desde ahí, y a partir de un muy cuidado manejo de la palabra poética y de ciertos recursos tipográficos, se construye un universo amatorio que se opone al aparato heteronormativo y se enfoca en los afectos. También se destaca, en esta misma línea de resistencia, cómo en la poesía de Ledesma Vázquez se erige un cuestionamiento a la violencia uniformadora de la vida moderna y al impulso teleológico del capitalismo, en particular, al contraponer la hostilidad de la ciudad real –dibujada en varios textos– con la armonía de Sodoma.