Bio-Imperialism : Disease, Terror, and the Construction of National Fragility

"Bio-imperialism focuses on an understudied dimension of the war on terror-the fight against bioterrorism. This component of the war included the enlistment of bioscientists and health workers to augment U.S. biodefense and disease control infrastructure, advancing U.S. control over biological resources on a global scale. The book argues that U.S. imperial ambitions drove this move, aided by U.S. government and mass media narratives that deployed gendered and raced discourses of terrorism, U.S. vulnerability, and white femininity-intertwined with discourses about disease and technoscientific progress. The result was further entrenchment of tropes of Arabs, Muslims, and other racially marginalized communities as embodying terror and disease; the revamping of research industries conducting dangerous lab experiments on pathogens; the militarization of public health and its deployment of feminized bodies in service of warmongering; and decreased autonomy for global south nations to administer health care to their populations. Yet as U.S. bio-empire pressed forward, so too did new forms of confrontation-its critics rejected its hegemonic narratives, electing instead to build transnational solidarities and engage in collective struggle to oppose the mobilization of the bioscience and public health fields for war and empire. Bio-imperialism is a sobering look at how the war on terror impacted the world in ways that we are only just starting to grapple with"-- Provided by publisher

Bio-Imperialism focuses on an understudied dimension of the war on terror—the fight against bioterrorism. This component of the war enlisted the biosciences and public health fields to build up the U.S. biodefense industry and U.S. global disease control. The book argues that U.S. imperial ambitions drove these shifts in focus, aided by gendered and raced discourses on terrorism, disease, and science. It demonstrates that the U.S. government and mass media amplified Orientalist tropes of Arabs, Muslims, and other racially marginalized communities as terrorists and disease carriers, and also circulated metaphors of white feminine fragility to stoke a sense of national fragility against bioterrorism and other germ threats. These narratives helped rationalize American research expansion into dangerous germs and bioweapons in the name of biodefense, and further, bolstered the U.S. rationale for increased interference in the disease control decisions of global south nations. Bio-Imperialism is a sobering look at how the war on terror impacted the world in ways that we are only just starting to grapple with.

Bio-Imperialism focuses on an understudied dimension of the war on terror: the fight against bioterrorism. This component of the war enlisted the biosciences and public health fields to build up the U.S. biodefense industry and U.S. global disease control. The book argues that U.S. imperial ambitions drove these shifts in focus, aided by gendered and racialized discourses on terrorism, disease, and science. These narratives helped rationalize American research expansion into dangerous germs and bioweapons in the name of biodefense and bolstered the U.S. rationale for increased interference in the disease control decisions of Global South nations. Bio-Imperialism is a sobering look at how the war on terror impacted the world in ways that we are only just starting to grapple with. Introduction: Bio-imperialism and the entanglement of bioscience, public health, and national security -- The making of the technoscientific Other: tales of terrorism, development, and Third World morality -- From practicing safe science to keeping science out of "dangerous hands": U.S. exceptionalism, technoscientific faith, and the resurgence of "biodefense" -- Coopting Caregiving: softening militarism, feminizing the nation -- Preparedness migrates: pandemics, germ extraction, and "global health security" -- Epilogue: Repurposing science and public health