TY - JOUR
T1 - Immunity, biopolitics and pandemics
T2 - public and individual responses to the threat to life
AU - Davis, Mark
AU - Flowers, Paul
AU - Lohm, Davina
AU - Waller, Emily
AU - Stephenson, Niamh
PY - 2016/12/1
Y1 - 2016/12/1
N2 - This article examines discourse on immunity in general public engagements with pandemic influenza in light of critical theory on immuno-politics and bodily integrity. Interview and focus group discussions on influenza with members of the general public reveal that, despite endorsement of government advice on how to avoid infection, influenza is seen as, ultimately, unavoidable. In place of prevention, members of the general public speak of immunity as the means of coping with influenza infection. Such talk on corporeal life under microbial threat is informed by self/not-self, network and ‘choice’ immunity, and therefore makes considerable allowance for cosmopolitan traffic with others, microbes, ‘dirt’ and immune-boosting consumer products. The immuno-political orientation of members of the general public, therefore, appears to trend towards a productive cosmopolitanism that contrasts with more orthodox bioscientific and governmental approaches to pandemic influenza. We reflect on the implications of the immuno-cosmopolitanism of everyday life for the advent of global public health emergency and for biopolitical rule in general.
AB - This article examines discourse on immunity in general public engagements with pandemic influenza in light of critical theory on immuno-politics and bodily integrity. Interview and focus group discussions on influenza with members of the general public reveal that, despite endorsement of government advice on how to avoid infection, influenza is seen as, ultimately, unavoidable. In place of prevention, members of the general public speak of immunity as the means of coping with influenza infection. Such talk on corporeal life under microbial threat is informed by self/not-self, network and ‘choice’ immunity, and therefore makes considerable allowance for cosmopolitan traffic with others, microbes, ‘dirt’ and immune-boosting consumer products. The immuno-political orientation of members of the general public, therefore, appears to trend towards a productive cosmopolitanism that contrasts with more orthodox bioscientific and governmental approaches to pandemic influenza. We reflect on the implications of the immuno-cosmopolitanism of everyday life for the advent of global public health emergency and for biopolitical rule in general.
KW - biopolitics
KW - biovalue
KW - bodily integrity
KW - immunity
KW - pandemics
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84994102578&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1177/1357034X14556155
DO - 10.1177/1357034X14556155
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84994102578
SN - 1357-034X
VL - 22
SP - 130
EP - 154
JO - Body and Society
JF - Body and Society
IS - 4
ER -