Browsing by Author "Ragas Rojas, José Frank"

Now showing 1 - 12 of 12
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    2 Golden rats and sick empires: portraying medicine, poverty, and the bubonic plague in La Peste
    (Manchester University Press, 2022) Ragas Rojas, José Frank; Palma Maturana, Patricia Nataly; González Donoso, Guillermo Adrián
    With a ten-million-euro budget and 400 extras on set, La Peste (The Plague) – a ten-episode TV show produced by Spanish communication conglomerate Movistar and aired in January 2018 – became not only the most ambitious production in Spanish television history but also an overnight sensation among viewers and critics. This chapter examines how La Peste combines historical accuracy and fiction to portray the role of medicine, health agents, and population around a late sixteenth-century epidemic outbreak. Its release coincided with the centennial of the Spanish flu that killed twenty to fifty million people around the globe. In placing the epidemic at the core of the narrative, the show unveils the multiple yet contradictory ways people from various social groups and backgrounds reacted to the pandemic: either to save their own lives, procure a cure for others, or to take advantage of the crisis. The chapter highlights what makes La Peste a relevant case to study. As part of its marketing campaign, the production team deliberately sought to trespass the screen and insert the narrative into people’s daily lives. This team designed in advance of the TV series an interactive website with digital resources on the history of medicine and historical sites. Furthermore, in the days prior to the launch, several golden rats appeared in the streets of Seville to announce the show. While some viewers expressed their discomfort with the crude scenes depicting poor living conditions, others engaged with the campaign. As a result of this, La Peste constitutes a fascinating example of the possibilities offered by TV shows as vehicles for disseminating historical medical knowledge to a vast audience.
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    Archiving the Chilean Revolution
    (2021) Ragas Rojas, José Frank; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
    In October 2019, Santiago de Chile became the epicenter of a violent and massive protest against social inequality. Known as the Estallido Social (the Social Unrest), Chileans took to the streets seeking to dismantle the pervasive social and economic system inherited from Augusto Pinochet’s regime established half a century ago. Drawing from participant observations and interviews conducted during the protest, this essay examines the multiple efforts developed by scholars to document the vast repertoire of material generated during Santiago’s demonstrations (e.g., graffiti, signs, flags, testimonies, and merchandise). In doing so, I aim to situate the Estallido Social within the recent efforts deployed by museums, archives, and libraries to capture the changing nature and manifestations of global protests in the past few years.
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    Covid-19, the Chinese diaspora, and the enduring legacy of racism in Peru
    (2022) Ragas Rojas, José Frank; Palma, Patricia
    The coronavirus pandemic has exposed a global tendency throughout history to blame immigrants for propagating epidemics. Chinese individuals were thus targeted during past public health crises in Peru, but during the current coronavirus pandemic racist notions painting people of Chinese descent as "agents of contagion" diminished significantly. Here we examine three major epidemics (yellow fever, the bubonic plague, and covid-19) to demonstrate the current and somewhat surprising shift in negative attitudes toward the Chinese community. Peruvians' refusal to embrace derogatory terms (the "Chinese virus") or target individuals of Asian descent constitutes an intriguing case at a moment when xenophobic discourse is rampant in the Western hemisphere.
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    Desenmascarando a los impostores: Los médicos profesionales y su lucha contra los falsos médicos en Perú
    (2019) Palma Maturana, Patricia Nataly; Ragas Rojas, José Frank
    La caracterización de sanadores no-titulados como “charlatanes” o “impostores” ha influido notablemente en cómo han sido percibidos por la opinión pública y en las investigaciones académicas. Se creó, entonces, una división entre los médicos profesionales y aquellos que adquirieron su conocimiento de modo tradicional y no-académico. Este artículo cuestiona la supuesta división entre dichos especialistas en el campo de la salud para ofrecer un cuadro más complejo y rico de prácticas locales a partir del caso peruano. A partir, sobre todo, de correspondencia de la Facultad de Medicina de Lima y de avisos en periódicos, reconstruimos la dinámica de las autoridades médicas en sus intentos, muchas veces infructuosos, de contener y excluir a sanadores de origen asiático, europeo o local. Para ello, estudiamos dos artefactos diseñados para legitimar y monitorear a los médicos formados profesionalmente: los títulos o diplomas y las listas de graduados, predecesores de nuestros modernos documentos de identidad y bases de datos.
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    Enclaves sanitarios : higiene, epidemias y salud en el Barrio chino de Lima, 1880-1910
    (2018) Palma, Patricia; Ragas Rojas, José Frank
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    Feeding prejudices. Chinese Fondas and the Culinary Making of National Identity in Peru
    (Routledge, 2019) Palma Maturana, Patricia Nataly; Ragas Rojas, José Frank
    The recent boom of Peruvian gastronomy has not only catapulted chefs and national dishes to the world stage, prompting the emergence of a national sentiment of pride and unity around local cuisine, it has also exposed the selective way Peruvian cuisine has been constructed, favoring dishes associated with coastal areas and reifying an estranged yet contentious approach toward ethnic dishes with large presence in the country, especially Chinese food. This chapter examines the ubiquitous—and also neglected—Chinese contribution to Peruvian cuisine, analyzing its spread nationwide during the Age of Migration (1860s–1930s). We show how both fondas chinas (Chinese restaurants) and chifa became crucial arenas where national identities and the role of immigration were contested and disputed by policy makers, the Chinese community, and ordinary citizens. Although fondas provided an affordable alimentary alternative for thousands of lower class limeños, they were constantly under attack by elites and the press. Located mainly in Lima’s Chinatown, Chinese fondas were under permanent scrutiny by police officers and health inspectors. Authorities portrayed Chinese immigrants as carriers of diseases responsible for epidemics, a discourse conveniently exacerbated during the bubonic plague outbreaks. Other cities with a large presence of Chinese immigrants, such as San Francisco in California, experienced similar conflicts. Drawing from a wide array of sources, e.g. travelers’ logs, newspapers, cartoons, and official health reports, we aim to illuminate the role played by Chinese gastronomy in the establishment of a trans-Pacific community.
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    History of Pandemics in Latin America
    (University of Chicago Press, 2023) Ragas Rojas, José Frank
    This essay revisits the scholarly production around three major pandemics in the region: (a) the Third Plague Pandemic; (b) HIV/AIDS in the 1980s; and (c) COVID-19. The essay aims to provide a comprehensive set of resources (both printed and digital) in four languages (Portuguese, Spanish, English, and French) to examine how scholars have approached these phenomena and how their scope and interpretations have changed over time. Historians of health paid particular attention to sociocultural aspects of the disease, which enabled them to consider usually-neglected actors, such as patients of Indigenous and African descent with their own medical traditions. This added more complexity to our understanding of how these pandemics were fought and received. In addition, the essay suggests that COVID-19 prompted the emergence of historians of health as public scholars. They actively used social networks and other digital tools not only to communicate about the long history of diseases and pandemics in the region, but also to provide an authorized or informed perspective amid misinformation and fake news. In addition, the internet was crucial to the development of helpful databases and virtual conferences beyond academic campuses and paywalls.
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    Internal Passports, Counterfeiting, and Subversive Practices in Early Postcolonial Peru
    (2021) Ragas Rojas, José Frank
    Counterfeit identity papers have accompanied many Peruvians over the past two centuries as they moved within their own country. Through these documents, they have embraced numerous personalities and eluded strict controls to the dismay of policymakers and experts who envisioned building a robust surveillance system based on identity cards. This article analyzes counterfeiting as a set of objects, practices, and knowledge that emerged in the aftermath of the Wars of Independence during the transition to an autonomous Republic. Committed to establishing social and political order in this chaotic scenario, Peruvian authorities relied on low-tech devices known as internal passports to regulate mobility within the convoluted territory. Nonetheless, internal passports proved more fragile and less effective than expected. Peruvians rapidly learned to produce their own internal passports or to adulterate their information, developing a particular expertise that enabled them to navigate the nascent biometric system. Forged internal passports thus illustrate the enduring tensions between governments, citizens, and technology, as well as early efforts of individuals to regain control of their personal data.
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    Laura Rodríguez Dulanto (Perú, 1872-1919)
    (UCLPress, 2023) Ragas Rojas, José Frank; Rodríguez Birke, Camila Andrea
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    Perú y la memoria global de las víctimas de covid-19
    (2021) Ragas Rojas, José Frank
    The change in relationships with the victims of coronavirus is one of the most disturbing and least explored consequences of all the ways in which covid-19 has altered our lives over the last year. This essay examines the various strategies Peruvians have developed to compensate for the inability to attend funerals and burials in person due to government-imposed social distancing measures. The use of digital platforms, mainly social media, made it possible to recreate funeral rites and allowed the necessary grieving under adverse circumstances. Using a comparative approach, the essay concludes that it is necessary to erect a memorial to the victims of covid-19 as a way of raising public awareness, and that of future generations, about the need to prepare for an eventual future pandemic.
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    Turning Big Brother upside down: Revisiting surveillance from Latin America
    (2021) Ragas Rojas, José Frank; Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile
    This essay discusses the emergence of a vibrant body of research embracing surveillance in Modern Latin America. By focusing on a specific yet complex region, scholars have expanded the original framework associated with the term, applying this new lens to periods ranging from after the Wars of Independence to contemporary episodes. Moreover, the examination of surveillance in this region reveals how researchers have engaged not only with trending research but their willingness to respond to the social, political, and technological phenomena that have become more visible since the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the implementation of a new paradigm based on state security. This concern has become augmented with the revelations on the role of the National Security Agency and social media companies obtaining data from citizens. I conclude by suggesting new avenues for this nascent scholarship to move away from its rigid Orwellian nature and turn surveillance into a more flexible analytical tool.