Preparedness as a technology of (in)security: Pandemic influenza planning and the global biopolitics of emerging infectious disease

Abstract

This article takes as its starting point the idea that re-emerging infectious disease has become a paradigmatic way of thinking about disease. The framing of infectious disease as a threat to global public health and economic security coincides with preemptive forms of control. A particular type of preemptive regulation is global pandemic influenza planning that entails the governing of an imminent, albeit uncertain, global health event. We examine the discourse of 'preparedness' within pandemic planning documents produced by the World Health Organization from 1999 to 2009. We present key findings on: the construction of the influenza virus in terms of its potential to transform and expand across corporeal and territorial boundaries; and the integration of pandemic preparedness into everyday practices. Our analysis illustrates how the discourse of preparedness links the justification for population-level preemptive approaches to discursive constructions of the virus. By articulating this relationship, this article contributes to understandings of the implications of 'molecular' constructions for the biopolitical regulation of the global population.

The COVID-19 Pandemic and Outbreak Inequality: Mainstream Reporting of Singapore's Migrant Workers in the Margins

“…In the context of globalized neoliberal economies, the racialization of the COVID-19 pandemic moves beyond just race alone, but interplays within the context of mobility and migration, where the movement of racial people as transnational citizens are centered in the discussion of epidemics (Briggs, 2003;Mason, 2015). With disparities in migration and mobility, pandemics become moments of governance of biosecurity threats by nation-states, rendering unequal health effects when the outbreak manifest (Briggs and Hallin, 2016;Sanford et al, 2016).…”

The somatic-security industrial complex: theorizing the political economy of informationalized biology

“…Existing organizations such as the WHO have also been reconfigured by a global health security framing of biological threat. Not only has the organization acted as a norm entrepreneur for pandemic preparedness, with detailed planning for various phases of pandemics (Kamradt-Scott, 2010), it actions are indicative of how that organization effectively acted as the multilateral champion of the new security agenda, much to the chagrin of many of its member states (Sanford, Polzer, & McDonough, 2016), with a new Division of Emerging and Other Communicable Diseases created within the organization in 1995.…”

Escenarios y nuevas formas de vida en los espacios biomédicos / Scenarios and new forms of life in biomedical areas

“…Dentro de las nuevas herramientas propuestas para desplegar una vigilancia con una escala global se observan distintos formatos de sistemas y herramientas (Cho, 2008;Brownstein et al 2008;Fidler & Gostin, 2006;CDC, 2005CDC, , 2007 para reducir la sensación de descontrol y crear espacios desde donde imaginar posibles soluciones a contextos complejos (Sanford et al 2016;Jamison et al 2013). Vistos más allá de la euforia tecnocrática (innovación per se), estas herramientas plantean una visibilización impresionante en los espacios privados (Thomas, 2014;Lentzos & Rose, 2009), anulando el espacio personal en las "tecnologías del sí" (Foucault, 2008(Foucault, , 2009) ejercitadas sobre los actores bajo la percepción de libertad y de autogestión.…”

“…Las situaciones de crisis sanitarias globales, enmarcadas en criterios epidemiológicos como "pandemias", se conceptualizan en un plano socio-histórico como momentos de fuertes rupturas (Sanford, 2013;Sanford et al 2016;Seetoh et al 2016;Dickmann et al 2016, Tirado & Cañada, 2011 en los diseños de modelos de gestión y conceptualización de las tensiones entre salud y seguridad (Rose, 2007;Foucault, 2007Foucault, , 2008Dillon & Lobo-Guerrero, 2008).…”

“…Este ha sido propuesto como un modelo eficaz y novedoso de gestión que pretende revolucionar nuestra concepción de la prevención e intervención en el ámbito de la salud. El modelo se hizo especialmente visible, después del brote "pandémico" de 2009 de gripe porcina, que representó el punto álgido en la implementación de propuestas transnacionales ante amenazas que se consideraron verdaderas alertas globales (Sanford et al 2016). A partir de ese momento se observa, por ejemplo, la aparición pública de los primeros modelos e-epidemiológicos de vigilancia de brotes de enfermedades infecciosas, un buen ejemplo es Google Flu como proyecto piloto desarrollado entre la OMS (World Health Organization u Organización Mundial de la Salud) y Google.…”