Josh Seim, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor, Sociology
Tuesday, February 18, 2020
12:30 pm – 1:30 pm PT
Allan Hancock Foundation (AHF) B57J
BlueJeans Link: https://bluejeans.com/343371747
“Bandage, Sort, and Hustle: Ambulance Crews on the Front Lines of Urban Suffering.”
What is the role of the 911 ambulance in the American city?
The prevailing narrative provides a rather simple answer: saving and transporting the critically ill and injured. This is not an incorrect description, but it is incomplete. Drawing on field observations, medical records, and his own experience as a novice emergency medical technician, Josh Seim reimagines paramedicine as a frontline institution for governing urban suffering.
Seim illustrates how this work puts crews in recurrent, and sometimes tense, contact with the emergency department nurses and police officers who share their subjects. These street-level relations, however, cannot be understood without considering the bureaucratic and capitalistic forces that control and coordinate ambulance labor from above.
Beyond the ambulance, this presentation will focus on the labor-centric model for understanding the frontline governance of down-and-out populations.
Date/Time
February 18, 2020 @ 12:30 pm - 1:30 pm
Location
Spatial Sciences Institute Conference Room (AHF B57J)
