Biosecurity and the topologies of infected life: from borderlines to borderlands

Abstract

Biosecurity, as a response to threats from zoonotic, food‐borne and emerging infectious diseases, implies and is often understood in terms of a spatial segregation of forms of life, a struggle to separate healthy life from diseased bodies. While an ensuing will to closure in the name of biosecurity is evident at various sites, things are, in practice and in theory, more intricate than this model would suggest. There are transactions and transformations that defy easily segmented spaces. Using multi‐species ethnographic work across a range of sites, from wildlife reserves to farms and food processing plants, we argue for a shift of focus in biosecurity away from defined borderlines towards that of borderlands. The latter involves the detachment of borders from geographic territory and highlights the continuous topological interplay and resulting tensions involved in making life live. We use this spatial imagination to call for a different kind of biopolitics and for a shift in what counts as a biosecurity emergency. As a means to re‐frame the questions concerning biosecurity, we argue for a change of discourse and practice away from disease ‘breach points’ towards the ‘tipping points’ that can arise in the intense foldings that characterise pathological lives.

Public health ethics and more-than-human solidarity

“…Prainsack and Buyx's (2012) discussion of solidarity as an emerging principle in public health ethics stems from an extensive literature review and from treating biobanking, pandemics, and lifestyle-related diseases as case studies (Prainsack & Buyx, 2012). These three cases each have One Health valences, which have been explored elsewhere (e.g., French & Mykhalovskiy, 2013;Haraway, 2008;Hinchliffe et al, 2013). Prainsack and Buyx (2012), however, treat multi-species coexistence matter-of-factly.…”

Experiences of accessing CCTV data: The urban topologies of subject access requests

“…In answering this question, I consider the complexities that guide the normalisation of security (Amoore, 2009), but also the relations that sustain and challenge how security in performed. Here, I draw on topological 'sensibilities' (Hinchliffe et al, 2013) to explore the contested and uncontested relations in spaces observed and controlled by CCTV cameras. The premise, as with much of the topological work, is the spatial/temporal dynamics when objects or devices bind relationships.…”

“…The distance traversed by the SAR was used to demonstrate the multifarious ways in which five topologies of surveillant relations illuminate how these 36 relations are put into practice. CCTV data remains the constant, but, as Latham (2011) or Hinchliffe et al (2013) would have it, in topological terms it is not the object or the distance between things that is important, rather it is the relations that bind which are.…”

“…Again, in one instance, the irritation I obviously caused was lightly disguised, and, in each instance, the process of contacting the data controller was less than simple. Of 31 importance here is the converging of diverse actors and the tensions they generate; it is not the spatial distance or the SAR that poses most significance, but the interruption to the relationship that binds (Fussey, 2013;Hinchliffe et al, 2013). Good practice may be in evidence, but difficulties in operations remain.…”

Toward stronger theory in critical public health: insights from debates surrounding posthumanism

“…Yet the significance of nonhuman pathogens should not be reduced to a chain-of-causation way of conceptualizing disease onset. Rather, systemic relationships drive the incidence of infectious diseases, including zoonoses (Green 2012, Hinchliffe et al 2012, Mendelsohn 1998. Furthermore, institutionalized ways of thinking about and acting upon pathogens reflect systems of thought and their historical development (Lakoff 2008, Weir andMykhalovskiy 2010).…”