Bioinsecurity and Vulnerability

Nancy N. Chen

ISBN 10: 1938645421 / ISBN 13: 9781938645426

Published by SAR Press, US, 2014

About this Item

Life today is rife with rapid-fire "high alert" responses, a proliferating trend that is especially pronounced in the United States (though most certainly felt elsewhere as well), where past catastrophes shape expanding perceptions of imminent danger. September 11, 2001 looms as an inescapable spectral presence, defining an important baseline for the ramping up of biosecurity measures. However, the contributors to this volume argue against biosecurity as the new status quo by focusing instead on the ugly underbelly. Through considering the vulnerability of individuals and groups and particularly looking at how vulnerability propagates in the shadow of biosecurity, BioInsecurity and Vulnerability challenges the acceptance of surveillance measures or security interventions as necessities of life in the new millennium.

Seller Inventory # LU-9781938645426

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Bioinsecurity and Vulnerability
• Publisher: SAR Press, US
• Publication Date: 2014
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1938645421
• ISBN 13: 9781938645426
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: New

About this title

Synopsis

"Biosecurity" has ballooned into an increasingly mundane aspect of human experience, serving as a catchall for the detection, surveillance, containment, and deflection of everything from epidemics and natural disasters to resource scarcities and political insurgencies. The bundling together of security measures, its associated infrastructure, and its modes of governance alongside response times underscores a new urgency of preparedness--a growing global ethos ever alert to unforeseen danger--and actions that favor risk assessment, imagined worst-case scenarios, and carefully orchestrated, preemptive interventions. The contributors to Bioinsecurity and Vulnerability understand biosecurity to be a practice that links national identity with the securitization of daily governance. They argue against biosecurity as the new status quo by focusing instead on its ugly underbelly. Through considering the vulnerability of individuals and groups, particularly looking at how vulnerability propagates in the shadow of biosecurity, this volume challenges the acceptance of surveillance and security measures as necessities of life in the new millennium.

About the Author

Nancy N. Chen is associate professor of anthropology at the University of California, Santa Cruz. A medical anthropologist, she also teaches courses on food, ethnographic film, urban anthropology, China, and Asian Americans.