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Abstract
This article returns to the existentialist roots of ontological security theory (OST) and proposes a phenomenological re-reading of ontological security through the theoretical language of spherology and immunology in order to bring OST into a more substantive engagement with the spatial and immunological realities and practices of the globalizing world. Departing from the work of Peter Sloterdijk, the article advances three principal claims. Firstly, it shows that under the spatio-immunological dislocations of late modernity, the processes of ontological security are better understood as matters of "co-ontological security," reflecting the highly relational and co-dependent character by which human lifeworlds are organized and juxtaposed. Secondly, it explores the ways in which technologies and life-support systems of ontological security may have negative ramifications for the ontological integrities of other neighboring lifeworlds. And lastly, the article investigates the autoimmunological processes that are at work in all immunological systems and that are capable of turning the mechanisms of ontological security into the very sources of insecurity. In exploring these themes, the text examines the retirement community known as The Villages to show how protected living in an expanding and gated lifestyle community produces the very conditions of ontological insecurity for the self and for others.

This article explores the limitations of the oft-used biopolitical frameworks of interpreting the regulatory emergency measures that have been enacted worldwide in the face of the spreading pandemic of COVID-19. Not only have the state responses to coronavirus often been beset by manner of "biopolitical failures," it is also the Foucauldian emphasis on the top-down formation and application of immunity that produces a view of health security that is much too narrow. In proposing an alternative framework, the article draws from the spherology of Peter Sloterdijk and suggests a transition from bio- to a distinctly sphero-political theory of immunity that is capable of integrating the ontological synergies that exist between human bodies, spaces, and atmospheres. More specifically, the spheropolitics of coronavirus are discussed in relation to the security dispositif of the household and examined through the case of the Czech Republic.

The purpose of this article is to outline some of the key changes andadvancements in social theory and research methodology that weretriggered during the period of scientific self-reflection after the events ofthe so-called Arab Spring. The ongoing turn towards decidedlymicropolitical and anthropological approaches has had a significant impactespecially on macropolitical and universalist disciplines which, much liketheir regional counterparts, were largely caught o! guard by the MiddleEastern developments from the turn of the last decade. These changesrepresent a very welcome corrective detour to the established trajectoriesof scientific development, especially so with regard to the existing andprolonged issues surrounding interdisciplinary research that havehistorically plagued the research in Middle Eastern politics and for whichnew possibilities of resolutions are hereby opened.

The purpose of this article is to outline some of the key changes and advancements in social theory and research methodology that were triggered during the period of scientific self-reflection after the events of the so-called Arab Spring. The ongoing turn towards decidedly micropolitical and anthropological approaches has had a significant impact especially on macropolitical and universalist disciplines which, much like their regional counterparts, were largely caught off guard by the Middle Eastern developments from the turn of the last decade. These changes represent a very welcome corrective detour to the established trajectories of scientific development, especially so with regard to the existing and prolonged issues surrounding interdisciplinary research that have historically plagued the research in Middle Eastern politics and for which new possibilities of resolutions are hereby opened.