The Bio Scare: anthrax, SARS, smallpox, flu and the Technoscientific discourses of U.S. Empire
What: This is another story of how technoscience constructs what we think of as the “social
realm”. My specific story describes how U.S. bio-threat discourse draws transnational citizensubjects in new ways. In the backdrop of neoliberalism, the global war on terror, and the
discursive authority of biology, bio-threat discourse operates via gender and racialization
processes of “threat” construction and security modes in multiple sites of governmentality
(governmentality along 2 axes—health/science/security/civil and government/institution/civic).
These gendered/raced threat constructions and security modes center on microbes and thus I
focus on the ways that microbes are mapped through a variety of domains to tell this story of
transnational citizen-subject formation in the current context of (U.S.) Orientalism/Empire.
How: Show Intertextuality of bioterrorism and emerging infectious disease (of terrorism and
disease) through focus on microbes, of racialization and gendering processes…show through the
current/contingent focus on Arabs, Muslims and Chinese how these gendering/racialization
processes work and crystallize on particular populations without focusing too much on these
specific ethnic/gender groups. And show how these processes of subject formation are
transnational in scope.
Targeted Fields:
Women’s Studies, Ethnic Studies, Science (and medicine) studies,
media/cultural/communication studies, political science/empire studies
Materials:
(Mass media) Representations
(Scientific/Medical) Policies
Practices (of governmentality)
Methods:
Textual analysis (probably just expert advice interviews, not ethnographic)
Current Texts (U.S., and non-US sources for their contribution to/countering of these stories of
bio-threat discourse and the production of transnational citizen-subjects):
1. Mass Media: primary data re representations and secondary data re policies and practices
[media studies, feminist/postcolonial studies]
2. State policies and meeting transcripts: primary data re policies and practices
[feminist/postcolonial]
3. Science/Health Technical journals and publications: primary data re policies and practices
3a. Science/Health websites: primary data re representations [science/health studies]
4. Social justice organization publications/white papers: primary data re representations and
(moral) practices, secondary data re other sites’ practices [feminist/postcolonial]
Codes (examining emerging infectious disease and bioterrorism texts):
-discourses of biological authority
-gendered/raced risk/threat discourse: racialized/Orientalized/gendered dirty/clean vectors,
individualistic risk vs. at-risk vectors, intentional vs. unintentional threat, feminized population
vs. masculinist state protection
-gendering and racializing of surveillance and security measures
-transnational nature of biological “threats”/”risks” or moving/porous bodies and microbes
-intertextuality between terrorism discourse and disease discourse (Arabs/Muslims and Chinese)
(male and female “threat”/”risk”?)
Historical analysis topics:
Emerging infectious disease surveillance (“Syndromic surveillance”)
FBI/DOD/DHS + DHHS/CDC government funding shifts and policies
Emergence of State and non-State bio-threat policy institutes and policies
20th century contagious disease epidemics management
Post-Cold War security climate/emergence of “terrorism”
U.S.-China/U.S.-Arab governments’ security/economic relations (media?, health? relations)
Old information categories, media as secondary source [on website]:
BT portrayals in entertainment
BT journals/books
SOURCE: BT Surveillance Technologies
SOURCE: Merge of DOD/DHS and Public Health
SOURCE: Biowarfare/Biodefense and National Security
SOURCE: SARS and Global Health Surveillance, Quarantine; Flu
SOURCE: GWOT analysis
SOURCE: China/Arab and U.S. economic/security relations
SOURCE: Effects of NS on Labs
SOURCE: Role and regulation of labs/scientists re BT
SOURCE: Network security in the Health Care Setting
SOURCE: Role and Regulation of Health Care Settings re BT
SOURCE: Resistance (and Potential)
SOURCE: Anti-BW org’s: Davis lab
SOURCE: Anti-BW org’s:
SOURCE: EJ&H org’s:
SOURCE: Ethnic/immigrant or gender organizing:
EJ&H org’s: Roxbury Safety Net/ACE
Ethnic/immigrant or gender orgs:
Plan:
1.
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4.
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6.
7.
8.
9.
mass media coding
technical journal coding
State security and health policies
security historical analysis
disease management historical analysis
social justice organization publications
State meeting transcripts
technical websites
non-U.S. mass media and government policies re U.S.-characterized “bio- threats”
Mass Media (readership order) [via UC]
WSJ [Proquest, 1857-2003, 1984-current]
USA Today [abstracts only Proquest, 1987-current]
NY Times [Proquest, 1857-2003; 1980-current]
LA Times [Proquest, 1857-2003, 1985-current]
Washington Post [Newsbank 1977-current]
Title/Abstract [Intertext]:
Security/terror* + disease/flu (influenza)/epidemic/pandemic/SARS/public health/cell*/virus*
Arab (Middle Eastern)/Muslim (Islamic) + Chinese/Asian
Anywhere [Embodiment]:
Bioterror*/Biodefense/Biosecurity/Biological threat/Bio-threat/biological risk/biological
weapon/bioweapon/biowarfare/biological warfare/biological agent
Arab (Middle Eastern), Muslim (Islamic), Chinese/Asian, Men, Male, Women, Female
Risk/Threat
Suicide bomb*/body
Emerging infectious disease/cell*/virus*/flu/epidemic/pandemic/germ
Arab (Middle Eastern), Muslim (Islamic), Chinese/Asian, Men, Male, Women, Female
Risk/Threat
Suicide bomb*/body
Risk/Threat
Arab (Middle Eastern), Muslim (Islamic), Chinese/Asian, Men, Male, Women, Female
Surveillance + syndromic/emerging infectious disease/bioterror*
A More Sweeping Search of alternative periodicals like Village Voice? If only to get an idea
of what info/perspectives the mass media doesn’t cover (such as threat or post-disaster
industry profit or pharmaceutical profit)
Bioterror*/Biodefense/Biosecurity/Biological threat/Bio-threat/biological risk/biological
weapon/bioweapon/biowarfare
Arab (Middle Eastern), Muslim (Islamic), Chinese/Asian, Men, Male, Women, Female
Emerging infectious disease/cell*/virus*/flu/epidemic/pandemic
Arab (Middle Eastern), Muslim (Islamic), Chinese/Asian, Men, Male, Women, Female
Government Policies
LexisNexis Government Periodicals Index/Congressional Index (legislative analysis) [way back]
Public Laws: Lexis Nexis back to 1989
Federal Register: full text via GPO Access back to 1994; index via National Archives until 1989
Presidential Documents: by President via FAS, some but not all texts (George I: National
Security Presidential Directives; Clinton: PDD’s; Bush: NSD’s)
US Code: “Table of Popular Names” via Cornell; code plus Sources via LOC’s Thomas
Select Very Old sources: LOC’s American Memory
Status of Appropriations Legislation (budgets): GPO back to 1997; Thomas back to 1998
Arab (Middle Eastern)/Muslim (Islamic), Chinese/Asian
Bioterror*/Biodefense/Biosecurity/Biological threat/Bio-threat/biological risk/biological
weapon/bioweapon/biowarfare/biological warfare/biological agent
Arab (Middle Eastern), Muslim (Islamic), Chinese/Asian, Men, Male, Women, Female
Security/terror*/surveillance + public health/emerging infectious
disease/quarantine/pandemic/epidemic
Arab (Middle Eastern), Muslim (Islamic), Chinese/Asian, Men, Male, Women, Female
CiteTrack Search (Science/Medline/HighWire Press)
[Science Full texts free back to 1997, abstracts free before that]
Old search terms:
Title/Abstract:
Security (all)
Terrorism (Science)
Biodefense (Science)
Surveillance (all)
Anywhere:
Bioterrorism (all)
Public health (Science)
Emerging infectious disease (Science)
Flu (Science)
Pandemic (Science)
epidemic (Science)
Biosecurity (all)
In addition to very specific terms of above terms in mass media, add more general—
New search terms for Science http://www.sciencemag.org/search.dtl:
Surveillance
Security
Public health
Emerging infectious disease
Pandemic
Epidemic
Flu
SARS
New search terms for Pubmed/Medline [via UCLA]
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?tool=cdl&otool=cdlotool:
Anthrax
Smallpox
Avian flu
SARS
New search terms for HighWire Press http://highwire.stanford.edu/about/site.dtl:
(no additions to mass media terms) List from Myhighwire (yahoo account); hit “Articles
indexed by subject” tab for more organization!
HighWire Press (1,149 journals; 71/200 most frequently-cited peer-reviewed journals) for
back issues to 2001, possibly 1989 or earlier
[free all the way back]
BIOSIS (Biological abstracts) over 5,000 international journals
http://scientific.thomson.com/products/bp/
just abstracts, back to 1926?!