The Viral Politics of Covid-19: Nature, Home, and Planetary Health

Description

This book ​ critically examines the COVID-19 pandemic and its legal and biological governance using a multidisciplinary approach. The perspectives reflected in this volume investigate the imbrications between technosphere and biosphere at social, economic, and political levels. The biolegal dimensions of our evolving understanding of “home” are analysed as the common thread linking the problem of zoonotic diseases and planetary health with that of geopolitics, biosecurity, bioeconomics and biophilosophies of the plant-animal-human interface. In doing so, the contributions collectively highlight the complexities, challenges, and opportunities for humanity, opening new perspectives on how to inhabit our shared planet. This volume will broadly appeal to scholars and students in anthropology, cultural and media studies, history, philosophy, political science and public health, sociology and science and technology studies. Foreword Acknowledgments Contents List of Contributors Introduction Part I: Biosecurity and Planetary Health Cryopolitics of SARS-CoV-2: Biosecurity in Laboratories and Wet Markets The Hypothesis of Imported Frozen Products The Wet Market Hypothesis The Hypothesis of the Laboratory Accident References From Global to Planetary Health: Two Morphologies of Pandemic Preparedness International to Global Health The Global Virome COVID-19: A Success for Global Health Security? From Influenza Epicenter to Planetary Health Two Morphologies: From Global to Planetary Health References COVID-19 and the Contradictions of Planetary Health: Envisioning New Paradigms The Problem with Plastics Lifting the Veil on Food System Pathologies Revisioning the ‘Planetary’ and the ‘Health’ in Planetary Health Conclusion References Part II: Bio-social Dimensions of Public Health A Foucauldian Moment or the Longue Durée? COVID-19 in Context On the Politics of Time in Biopolitical Narratives Silent Chronologies at Work in Social Theory Counter-Histories and the Will to Ignore Them Plural Regimes of Biopolitics in Deep Time Conclusion: COVID-19, the Premodern/Modern Boundary, and the Epigenetics of History References Zoonoses and Medicine as Social Science: Implications of Rudolf Virchow’s Work for Understanding Global Pandemics Rudolf Virchow’s Social Understanding of Disease Social Medicine Cellular Pathology Zoonosis The Role of the Physician Rethinking Virchow’s Contributions in COVID-19 Times Conclusion References Living in Peace with Coronaviruses Naming the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 Beyond the Biosecurity Paradigm Virology After the Cold War Viruses as Terrorists, Zombies, and Symbionts Conclusion: Only the Minority Suffer References Part III: Social Distancing and Community The Micropolitics of Social Distancing: Habit, Contagion and the Suggestive Realm Habits, Humans and Infrastructures The Suggestive Realm and Contagion Conclusion References Visceral Publics and Social Power: Crowd Politics in the Time of a Pandemic The Social Body and the Physical Crowd Governmentality and the Capture of the Social References Ideologies of Contagion and Communities of Life Contagious Ideologies: Hope for an ‘Aufbruch’ Toward a New Revolution Dangerous Infection: The Return of Humanism Diagnosing Sickness: The Future of an Illusion Communities of Life References Part IV: Pandemic Neoliberalism Contradictions of the Bailout State Introduction Capital’s Democracy Reframing the Keynesian Welfare State From Welfare to Bailout State Conclusion References The Neoliberal Virus Rethinking Everything The Neoliberal State of Nature An Anthropocene Disease Epidemic Frontiers Speculative Natures References Part V: Pandemic Habitats Biometric Re-bordering: Environmental Control During Pandemic Times Biometric Borders During Pandemic Times Digital Enclosures Expanding Borders and the Grand Disaggregation Metagovernance: Post-Disciplinary Modalities of Control Environmentality References Planetary Health and the Biopolitics of Home Introduction Political Space and Conceptions of Home The Planetary Dimension and Its Biopolitics From Habitability to Milieu and Back Technosphere, Sensory Society, and Manhattan Principles of One Health Pandemic Bordering and the Biolegality of Mobility References Creative Responses to COVID-19 Part I: It Comes in Waves Part II: The Cure References Index