Assetization and the 'new asset geographies'.

An asset is both a resource and property, in that it generates income streams with its sale price based on the capitalization of those revenues. Although an asset's income streams can be financially sliced up, aggregated, and speculated upon across highly diverse geographies, there still has to be something underpinning these financial operations. Something has to generate the income that a political economic actor can lay claim to through a property or other right, entailing a process of enclosure, rent extraction, property formation, and capitalization. Geographers and other social scientists are producing a growing literature illustrating the range of new (and old) asset classes created by capitalists in their search for revenue streams, for which we argue assetization is a necessary concept to focus on the moment of enclosure and rent extraction. It is a pressing task for human geographers to unpack the diverse and contingent 'asset geographies' entailed in this assetization process. As a middle range concept and empirical problematic, we argue that assetization is an important focal point for wider debates in human geography by focusing attention on the moment of enclosure, rent extraction, and material remaking of society which the making of a financial asset implies.

A Critical Understanding of Inclusion in Oral Microbiome Research through the Lens of Racial Capitalism.

There are important calls for greater inclusion of Indigenous and racialised communities in oral microbiome research. This paper uses the concept of racial capitalism (the extractive continuity of colonialism) to critically examine this inclusion agenda. Racial capitalism explicitly links capitalist exploitations with wider social oppressions e.g., racisms, sexism, ableism. It is not confined to the commercial sector but pervades white institutions, including universities. By using the lens of racial capitalism, we find inclusion agendas allow white institutions to extract social and economic value from relations of race. Racially inclusive research is perceived as a social good, therefore, it attracts funding. Knowledge and treatments developed from research create immense value for universities and pharmaceutical companies with limited benefits for the communities themselves. Moreover, microbiome research tends to drift from conceptualisations that recognise it as something that is shaped by the social, including racisms, to one that is determined genetically and biologically. This location of problems within racialised bodies reinforces racial oppressions and allows companies to further profit from raciality. Inclusion in oral microbiome research must consider ways to mitigate racial capitalism. Researchers can be less extractive by using an anti-racism praxis framework. This includes working with communities to co-design studies, create safer spaces, giving marginalised communities the power to set and frame agendas, sharing research knowledges and treatments through accessible knowledge distributions, open publications, and open health technologies. Most importantly, inclusion agendas must not displace ambitions of the deeper anti-oppression social reforms needed to tackle health inequalities and create meaningful inclusion.

The Colonial History of Systemic Racism: Insights for Psychological Science.

The psychological study of systemic racism can benefit from the converging insights of "Black Marxism" and development economics, which illustrate how modern systemic racism is rooted in the political and economic institutions established during the historical period of European colonization. This article explores how these insights can be used to study systemic racism and challenge scientific racism in psychology by rethinking traditional research paradigms to incorporate the histories of race, class, and capitalism. Antiracism strategies that make use of these histories are also discussed, which include disrupting the psychological processes that sustain racist systems.

Beyond Empathy to System Change: Four Poems on Health by Bertolt Brecht.

Bertolt Brecht's poem "A Worker's Speech to a Doctor" is frequently cited as a means to raise awareness among health workers of the health effects of living and working conditions. Less cited is his Call to Arms trilogy of poems, which calls for class-based action to transform the capitalist economic system that sickens and kills so many. In this article, we show how "A Worker's Speech to a Doctor," with its plea for empathy for the ill, contrasts with the more activist and often militant tone of the Call to Arms trilogy: "Call to a Sick Communist," "The Sick Communist's Answer to the Comrades," and "Call to the Doctors and Nurses." We also show that, while "A Worker's Speech to a Doctor" has been applied in the training of health workers, its accusatorial tone towards health workers' complicity in the system the poem is critiquing risks alienating such workers. In contrast, the Call to Arms trilogy seeks common ground, inviting these same workers into the broader political and social fight against injustice. While we contend that the description of the sick worker as a "Communist" risks estranging these health workers, our analysis of the Call to Arms poems nevertheless indicates that their use can contribute to moving health workers' educational discourse beyond a laudable but fleeting elicitation of empathy for the ill towards a structural critique and deeper systemic understanding in order to prompt action by health workers to reform or even replace the capitalist economic system that sickens and kills so many.

A mercantilização anunciada da Pesquisa na Espanha dos anos 2000 / The announced commodification of Research in Spain in the 2000s

Resumo: Este artigo problematiza o processo de mercantilização universitária na Espanha, relacionando-o às tendências globais, mediante realização de pesquisa bibliográfica. Destaca o papel crucial desempenhado pela Agência Nacional de Avaliação da Qualidade e Acreditação (ANECA) e a imposição progressiva de fatores de impacto em periódicos científicos como expressão do fortalecimento do denominado capitalismo acadêmico e do trabalho digital nas universidades, no âmbito das reformas universitárias dos anos 2000.

Abstract: This article problematizes the process of university commodification in Spain, relating it to global trends, through bibliographic research. It highlights the crucial role played by the National Agency for Quality Evaluation and Accreditation (ANECA) and the progressive imposition of impact factors in scientific journals as an expression of the strengthening of academic capitalism and digital work in universities, within the framework of the university reforms of the 2000s.

The critical (micro)political economy of health: A more-than-human approach.

The critical political economy of health offers different explanations for the social causes of health and the social factors determining the distribution of these causes. However, the relational, post-anthropocentric and monist ontology of the new materialisms overcomes this complexity, while retaining a critical focus. In this perspective, the social, economic and political relations of capitalism act upon bodies and other matter in everyday events, rather than as 'social structures'. Using a conceptual toolkit of 'affect', 'assemblage', 'capacity' and 'micropolitics', the paper asks the question: 'what does capitalism do?' The re-analysis of the social and economic relations of capitalism in terms of a production-assemblage and a market-assemblage reveals not only the workings of capitalist accumulation, but also how previously-unremarked more-than-human affects in these assemblages simultaneously produce uncertainty, waste and inequalities. This micropolitical economy of health is illustrated with examples from recent research, including a critical assessment of health inequalities during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Medicalização da subjetividade e fetichismo psicofármaco: uma análise dos fundamentos / Medicalization of subjectivity and psychotropic drugs fetishism: an analysis of the fundamentals

Resumo Este trabalho trata dos fundamentos da epidemia das drogas psiquiátricas e tem por objetivo analisar a medicalização da subjetividade e o fetichismo dos psicofármacos em suas bases fundamentais. Trata-se de uma reflexão teórica à luz da análise do discurso inaugurada por Michel Pêcheux, a partir da qual se apresenta um gesto de interpretação, possibilitando identificar a epidemia das drogas psiquiátricas como expressão da medicalização da vida. Com base na crítica dos fundamentos da forma capitalista de consumo e da prescrição dos psicofármacos, esta análise demonstrou como o modelo de metabolismo social do capital impõe aos sujeitos uma terapêutica fetichizada. Espera-se contribuir com práticas que lutam pelo legado do movimento antimanicomial e, com isso, somar aos esforços dos sujeitos envolvidos na produção de práticas terapêuticas efetivamente humanizadas e críticas.

Abstract This study deals with the foundations of the psychiatric drug epidemic, aiming to analyze the medicalization of subjectivity and the fetishism of psychotropic drugs in their fundamental bases. It is a theorical reflection in the light of discourse analysis inaugurated by Michel Pêcheux, from which it presents a gesture of interpretation, allowing the identification of the psychiatric drug epidemic as an expression of the medicalization of life. Based on the critique of the foundations of the capitalist form of consumption and prescription of psychotropic drugs, this analysis demonstrated how the social metabolism model of capital imposes a fetishized therapy on the subjects. We hope to contribute to the practices of those who fight for the legacy of the anti-asylum movement and thus add to the efforts of the subjects involved in the production of effectively humanized and critical practices.

"Música Paraense" e Terruá Pará: identidade regional, indústria cultural e psicologia das massas / "Pará Music" and Terruá Pará: regional identity, cultural industry and mass psychology / La «Musique Paraense¼ et le Terruá Pará: identité régionale, l'industrie culturelle et la psychologie des foules / "Música Paraense" y Terruá Pará: identidad regional, industria cultural y psicología de las masas

Desde a consolidação de emissoras de rádio e TV no Pará, a mídia local propaga a ideia de uma "música paraense", título utilizado com frequência em uma série de eventos recentemente produzidos dentro e fora do estado. Ao contestar essa singularização, a presente pesquisa apresenta uma análise psicossociológica dos mecanismos que operam na inter-relação entre indústria cultural e formação de massas, utilizando como objeto privilegiado de estudo o espetáculo Terruá Pará. Visando tal intento, além do recurso à revisão bibliográfica, realizou-se uma pesquisa documental sobre parte do material impresso produzido para a terceira edição do festival. Em termos conclusivos, defende-se que o Terruá Pará, embora pautado por um discurso pretensamente racional em prol da valorização da música regional, torna-se dialeticamente promotor de irracionalidades expressas na sugestão de modos de subjetivação específicos que, desconsiderando diversidades, acabam por reduzir o seu público consumidor à qualidade de multidão abstrata

Since the consolidation of radio and TV broadcasters in Pará, local media has propagated the idea of a "Pará music," moniker often used in a series of events produced in and outside the State. By contesting such singularization, this psychosociological analysis unveils the mechanisms that mediate cultural industry and mass formation by analyzing the spectacle Terruá Pará. For this purpose, a bibliographic review was conducted, as well as a documentary research concerning part of the printed material produced for the festival's third edition. In conclusion, although Terruá Pará appears based on an allegedly rational discourse to value regional music, it dialectically promotes irrationalities expressed in specific modes of subjectivation that, disregarding diversity, reduce its consuming public to the quality of abstract crowd

Depuis la consolidation des stations de radio et télévision à l'état du Pará, les médias locaux ont diffusé l'idée d'une «musique paraense¼, expression souvent utilisée dans une série d'événements récemment produits dans cet état autant que dehors. En contestant cette singularisation, cette recherche présente une analyse psychosociologique des mécanismes agissant dans l'interrelation entre l'industrie culturelle et la formation des foules, en prenant comme objet principal d'étude le spectacle Terruá Pará. Dans ce but, outre le recours à l'étude bibliographique, on a mené une recherche documentaire sur une partie du matériel imprimé produit pour la troisième édition du festival. En conclusion, on soutient que Terruá Pará, bien que guidé par un discours prétendument rationnel en faveur de la valorisation de la musique régionale, devient dialectiquement promoteur d'irrationalités exprimées par la suggestion de modes de subjectivation spécifiques qui, en ignorant les diversités, finissent par réduire son public consommateur à une foule abstraite

Desde la consolidación de las estaciones de radio y televisión en Pará, los medios locales han difundido la "musica paraense", título de uso frecuente en eventos producidos dentro y fuera del Estado. Al impugnar esta singularización, esta investigación presenta un análisis psicosociológico de los mecanismos que operan en la interrelación entre la industria cultural y la formación de masas, utilizando como objeto privilegiado de estudio el espectáculo Terruá Pará. Además del uso de la revisión bibliográfica, fue llevada a cabo una investigación documental sobre parte del material producido para la tercera edición del festival. En conclusión, se argumenta que Terruá Pará, aunque guiado por un discurso supuestamente racional a favor de la valorización de la música regional, se convierte dialécticamente en promotor de irracionalidades expresadas en la sugerencia de modos específicos de subjetivación que, sin tener en cuenta las diversidades, reducen su público consumidor a la calidad de multitud abstracta

Neopentecostalismo, teología de la prosperidad y neoliberalismo. Hacia una lógica religiosa para el Homo oeconoimicus

El presente escrito tiene por objetivo demostrar que la relación entre la teología de la prosperidad, que se toma aquí específicamente en su expresión neopentecostal, y el neoliberalismo, entendido desde su dimensión de fuerza productora de subjetividad, se ha fortalecido dentro del actual marco de reproducción sistémica del capitalismo. Para esto se divide el escrito en tres partes: la primera, que se encarga de exponer conceptualmente el neopentecostalismo; la segunda, donde se expone la teología de la prosperidad; y, por último, aquella que trabaja la manera en que el fenómeno religioso neopentecostal, como ejemplo de fe de la prosperidad, se vincula con el neoliberalismo. De este modo, y a partir del método documental-bibliográfico, se puede evidenciar cómo es que el actual viraje del capitalismo se dirige hacia ciertas prácticas y discursos religiosos, de modo que pueda capturarlos y volverlos a su favor, ya que dichas prácticas y discursos permiten, entre otras cosas, una alternativa para curar, momentáneamente, el sufrimiento subjetivo que padece el Homo oeconomicus por vivir como manda el sistema.

The purpose of this paper is to demonstrate the relationship theology of prosperity, which is specifically taken in its neo-Pentecostal expression, and neoliberalism as necessary within the current framework of systemic reproduction of capitalism. For this, the writing is divided into three parts: the first, which is responsible for conceptually exposing neo-Pentecostalism; the second, where the theology of prosperity is exposed; and, finally, the one that works on the way in which the neo-Pentecostal religious phenomenon, as an example of faith in prosperity, is linked to neoliberalism. In this way, it can be evidenced how the current turn of capitalism is directed towards religion, so that it can capture it and turn it in its favor, since it allows an alternative to cure, momentarily, the subjective suffering of Homo oeconomicus that inhabits within the system that he himself produced.

O objetivo deste artigo é demonstrar que a relação entre a teologia da prosperidade, específicamente tomada em sua expressão neopentecostal, e o neoliberalismo, entendido a partir de sua dimensão de força produtora de subjetividade, tem se fortalecido no atual quadro de reprodução do capitalismo. Para isso, o escrito está dividido em três partes: a primeira, que se encarrega de expor conceitualmente o neopentecostalismo; a segunda, onde é exposta a teologia da prosperidade; e, por fim, a que trabalha a maneira como o fenômeno religioso neopentecostal, como exemplo de fé na prosperidade, se vincula ao neoliberalismo. Desta forma, e a partir do método bibliográfico-documental, pode-se evidenciar como a atual virada do capitalismo está voltada para a religião, de modo que possa capturá-la e transformá-la a seu favor, pois permite uma alternativa para curar, momentaneamente, o sofrimento subjetivo sofrido pelo homo oeconomicus por viver como manda o sistema.

A Challenge to Orthodoxy in Psychology: Thomas Sowell and Social Justice.

Psychologists address social-justice problems in their research and applied work, and their scholarly efforts have been influenced by assumptions, constructs, and hypotheses from the political left. Recently, some psychologists have called for increased intellectual and political diversity in psychology, particularly as such diversity may lead to improved problem-solving. As an attempt to increase intellectual diversity in psychology, we review here the scholarship of Thomas Sowell. His work represents a rich source of hypotheses for psychologists' future research. We focus on his views on the importance of freedom; the extent to which reforms can reduce freedom; the importance of free markets to human flourishing; the role of free markets in producing costs for discrimination; the way spontaneously ordered systems can contain knowledge that can be overlooked in reforms; and the importance of culture and cultural capital. We will also discuss Sowell's more thoroughgoing economic analyses of problems and solutions and his analyses of contingencies operating on politicians and reformers, as well as his views on conflicts in fundamental visions about human nature and the pivotal role of improvements in minority education.

Corporate Moral Responsibility, Distributive Justice, the Common Good, and Catholic Social Teaching: The Case of Gilead Sciences and Remdesivir.

Applying the moral principles of Catholic social teaching's (CST) on capitalism, distributive justice, private ownership, the common good, and the role of the state in the economy as the overall theoretical framework and utilizing secondary data, media reports, and scientific literature, this article explores the corporate moral responsibility of the top drug makers in the ownership and pricing of their essential medicines and COVID-19 vaccines. Specifically, it presents the case of the Gilead Sciences' business strategies and overpricing of Remdesivir drug to illustrate how predatory capitalism undermines the moral responsibility of drug makers and CST's moral principle on the common good in today's pandemic. Distributive justice requires that the publicly funded and developed medicines and vaccines should be priced and distributed fairly to promote the common good and prevent the public from "paying twice" for these essential medicines. Given the public character of these medicines and the demands of social justice, the price of Remdesivir and other essential medicines of Gilead Sciences and Big Pharma for COVID-19 could have been lower than what was officially announced. Ultimately, these medicines could have been made global public health goods in accordance with CST's doctrines on distributive justice, the common good, and the social dimension of private ownership.

Suicídio como sintoma social: um estudo sobre os impactos do capitalismo nas subjetividades / Suicide as a social symptom: a study on the impacts of capitalism on subjectivities / El suicidio como síntoma social: un estudio sobre los impactos delcapitalismo enlas subjetividades

O suicídio é um fenômeno multifatorial, considerado um grave problema de saúde pública que atinge, em média, cerca de 700 mil pessoas todos os anos. Diante disso, este artigo tem por objetivo analisar este fenômeno e sua relação com o capitalismo, tendo como base a determinação social da saúde e o cenário individualista deste modelo de sociedade que podem ser causadores da morte autoprovocada. Com isso, foi realizada uma pesquisa bibliográfica que evidenciou a precarização da vida na realidade brasileira e o sofrimento social envolto à população marginalizada, mediado pelas desigualdades do sistema capitalista, dentre elas o desemprego, precarização do trabalho, racismo, sexismo, lgbtfobia e a pobreza como alguns dos elementos envolvidos no suicídio. Verificou-se a importância de considerar os atravessamentos sociais, políticos, econômicos, históricos e culturais no debate sobre a morte voluntária e na promoção e valorização da vida, contrapondo uma visão individualista e reducionista do fenômeno. (AU)

El suicidio es un fenómeno multifactorial, considerado un grave problema de salud pública que afecta, en promedio, a alrededor de 700,000 personas cada año. Ante esto, este artículo tiene como objetivo analizar este fenómeno y su relación con el capitalismo, basándose en la determinación social de la salud y en el escenario individualista de este modelo de sociedad, que pueden ser causantes de la muerte autoprovocada. Con esto, se realizó una investigación bibliográfica que evidenció la precarización de la vida en la realidad brasileña y el sufrimiento social que rodea a la población marginada, mediado por las desigualdades del sistema capitalista, entre las que se encuentran el desempleo, la precarización del trabajo, el racismo, el sexismo, la lgbtfobia y la pobreza como algunos de los elementos del suicidio. Se destacó la importancia de considerar los cruces sociales, políticos, económicos, históricos y culturales en el debate sobre la muerte voluntaria y en la promoción y valoración de la vida, oponiéndose a una visión individualista y reduccionista del fenómeno. (AU)

Suicide is a multifactorial phenomenon, considered a serious public health problem that affects, on average, about 700 thousand people per year. Therefore, this article aims to analyze the phenomenon of suicide and its relationship with capitalism, based on the social determination of the health and the individualistic scenario of this model of society that can be the cause of self-mutilation. With that, a bibliographical research was carried out that evidenced the precariousness of life in the Brazilian reality and the social suffering that surrounds the marginalized population, mediated by the inequalities of the capitalist system, including unemployment, precariousness of employment, racism, sexism, LGBTphobia and poverty as some of the elements involvedin suicide. It was found important to consider the social, political, economic, historical and cultural intersections in the debate on voluntary death and in the promotion and appreciation of life, in opposition to an individualistic and reductionist viewof the phenomenon.

Racialised capitalism, decoloniality and the university: an exploration of the colour line and colonial unreason in higher education.

Over the last decade, there has been an increase in calls to address important questions on race and decolonisation within the university, administratively, pedagogically, and socially. This study investigates the relationship between the university, the coloniser, and the colonised during the colonial era and the afterlife. It aims to demonstrate that the university has made the act of abstraction and theorisation central across disciplines in a way that shears theoretical principles from the historical contexts they emerge from, distancing them from the purposes, people, and interests they were meant to serve, as well as the populations they were meant to dispossess and disempower. The study provides a conceptual framework for deconstructive analysis of the university's pedagogical operations and societal function with the view to elucidate the university's colonial and racial blind spots, notably, with a reliance on disciplinary narratives from development, international relations, and international law to offer tentative answers to the questions of decolonial praxis, the decolonial scholar, and coloniality in the contemporary university.

Schools as Drivers of Capitalist Accumulation Conditional Socialized Reproduction in Shenzhen.

Based on fieldwork in an urbanized village of Shenzhen, this paper analyzes the place of schools in the reproduction of Chinese state capitalism. It retraces the circuit of socialized capital that allows for the social reproduction of the native elite and the exclusion of many migrant workers in the context of Shenzhen's development as a special economic zone and its efforts to upgrade the economy. The native villagers, now forming an urban upper-class of rentiers, have capitalized on their overseas connections and capital accumulation to finance their school, allowing for their elite's upward social mobility after, but also already under Mao. After China's transition to capitalism, this school has served as an asset in generating value in the context of redevelopment and the real estate-driven upgrading of Shenzhen's economy. Property ownership is now a major criterion in points-based systems for accessing school places. I make two interrelated arguments. First, there is a closer relationship between the secondary circuit of socialized capital and the larger circuit of capital than what the literature on social reproduction implies. Second, the conditionality of quality education upon value generation amounts to separating the population deemed worthy of socialized reproduction and the surplus population that is left out. The paper connects diverse strands of social reproduction theory, Althusser's interpellation and ideological state apparatuses, feminist agentive social reproduction theories, and Bourdieu's capital conversion recuperated within a Marxian framework, to provide an integrated approach to social reproduction within capitalism.

"When there is no money, that is when I vomit blood": the domino effect and the unfettered lethal exploitation of Black labor on Dominican sugar plantations.

BACKGROUND: In this article, I utilize the concept of the Plantationocene as an analytical framework to generate a holistic and historical understanding of the present-day struggles of a mostly Haitian migrant workforce on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic. METHODS: Inspired by Paul Farmer's methodology, I combine political economy, history, and ethnography approaches to interpret the experiences of sugarcane cutters across historical and contemporary iterations of colonial, post-colonial, and neo-colonial practices over the course of five centuries. RESULTS: My findings elucidate the enduring power of capitalism, implicating corporate and state elites, as the structural scaffolding for acts of racialized violence that condition the life-and-death circumstances of Black laborers on Caribbean plantations to this day. Although today's sugarcane cutters may suffer differently than their enslaved or wage labor ancestors on the plantation, I argue that an unfettered racialized pattern of lethal exploitation is sustained through the structural violence of neoliberalism that links present conditions with the colonial past. CONCLUSIONS: Ultimately, this paper contributes understandings of the plantationocene's enduring effects in the global south by demonstrating how imperialist arrangements of capitalism are not a distant memory from the colonial past but instead are present yet hidden and obscured while relocated and reanimated overseas to countries like the Dominican Republic, where American capitalists still exploit Black bodies for profit and power.

"Post"-pandemic Capitalism: Reform or Transform? Comment on "Ensuring Global Health Equity in a Post-pandemic Economy".

This commentary expresses appreciation for Professor Labonté's work, along with some hopefully constructive suggestions. Professor Labonté's editorial shows ambivalence about reforms within capitalism. Such reforms remain contradictory and unlikely to prevail. Transformation to post-capitalist political economies is an exciting focus of moving beyond the hurtful effects of capitalism. Can "the state… mitigate capitalism's inherent inegalitarianism"? Problematically, government resides in the capitalist state, whose main purpose is to protect the capitalist economic system. The state's contradictory characteristics manifest in inadequate measures to protect health, as during the COVID-19 pandemic. "Social determination," referring to illness-generating structures of power and finance, is replacing "social determinants," referring mainly to demographic variables. Problems warranting attention include: capitalist industrial agriculture causing pandemics through destruction of protective natural habitat, structural racism, sexism and social reproduction, social class structure linked to inequality, and expropriation of nature to accumulate capital. Transformation to post-capitalism involves creative construction of new solidarity economies, while creative destructions block smooth functioning of the capitalist system.

Things That Become Visible, for a While, Can Leave a Residue Comment on "Ensuring Global Health Equity in a Post-pandemic Economy".

Professor Labonté's editorial is an important intervention that reiterates the stark socio-economic and health inequities that were exposed and perpetuated during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic to call on the public health community to hold politicians to account for their promises of 'building back better.' The editorial makes present how quickly pandemic promises seem to have become dislodged by an ostensibly endless cycle of political and economic crises. But it also expresses a hope that lessons from the pandemic will eventually serve to challenge prevailing (economic) policy orthodoxy and feed a collective demand for more progressive social, economic and environmental justice-oriented politics.

Pandemic's Experience Questioning Capitalistic Dominance Comment on "Ensuring Global Health Equity in a Post-pandemic Economy".

Reflecting on the up-to-date global experience of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is of crucial importance in order to draw conclusions needed for the design of policies aiming the prevention of new epidemics and the effective protection, preparedness and response of any new emerging. Ongoing environmental destruction, excess mortality by COVID-19 and non-COVID diseases reflecting the dismantlement and commodification of both public health services and healthcare services, deep economic crisis, increasing and deepening social inequalities are the main characteristics raised by the pandemic. The causes of the causes of all these are the dominant rules of the capitalistic system, driven mainly by the unlimited greed for profit on the expenses of the majority of the society. The effectiveness of any proposed correction of this system is discussed and the need for another society responding to the needs of the population is argued.

The Magical Work of Brand Futurity: The Mythmaking of Disney.

The Walt Disney Company has maintained an aggressive approach to brand management for nearly a century. With the acquisition of a number of highly reputable companies, this aggression has become unignorable within the media industry. At the same time, Disney has embraced digital expansionism, culminating with the launch of its own on-demand streaming service, Disney+, in late 2019. The platform's documentary series offer a unique window into this new era of the Disney empire, usefully demonstrating the careful navigation of corporate legacy and history in the creation and maintenance of what I term brand futurity. Thinking critically about the concept of collective imaginaries in the context of the digital and streaming economies, this article argues that these docuseries illustrate Disney's digital corporate strategy as a narrativization of wonderful work and ever-expanding value.

Actualizando el sistema; capitalismo cognitivo y semiocapitalismo / Updating the System; Cognitive Capitalism and Semiocapitalism

El conocimiento en las sociedades digitalizadas se torna aceleradamente efímero, obsolescente y competitivo. Así, los roles de sus académicos se ven sometidos a una existencia precaria; se esfuerzan por acumular capital semiótico a través de factores de impacto ­fácilmente cuantificables­ que desdibujan el valor cualitativo de lo cognitivo. Es en esta trama que terminan inscribiéndose las universidades del siglo XXI; la mayéutica de Akádêmos comienza a desdibujarse tras la competitividad burocrático-empresarial del capitalismo cognitivo

Knowledge in digitized societies rapidly becomes ephemeral, obsolescent and competitive. Thus, the roles of its academics are subjected to a precarious existence; they strive to accumulate semiotic capital through impact factors ­ easily quantifiable ­ that blur the qualitative value of the cognitive. It is in this plot that the universities of the XXI century end up registering; Akádêmos's maieutics begins to blur behind the bureaucratic-business competitiveness of cognitive capitalism