Pandemic cities

Biopolitical effects of changing infection control in post-Sars Hong Kong

Bibliographic Data

ID5287765
AuthorsHenning Füller (0000-0002-0720-1679, Geography Department Humboldt University Berlin Rudower Chaussee 16 12489 Berlin Germany, corresponding author)
Year2016
Volume182
Issue4
Pages342-352
Publication date2016-12-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueGeographical Journal (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0016-7398 • E-ISSN: 1475-4959
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/geoj.12179
OpenAlexW2521493511
LanguageEN
Citations received7
References cited49

The growing fear of an emerging pandemic has facilitated efforts in infection control, where new technologies and laws have been introduced nationally and at the level of WHO. This renewed emphasis on infection control is changing the character of global health. This is well described as a securitisation of global health. Less clear is how an 'emerging diseases worldview' does play out on an urban scale. The city has historically been the preferred site for biopolitical interventions, which poses a question about the biopolitics of the 'pandemic city'. Severely experiencing the SARS epidemic in 2003, Hong Kong may be an exemplary case in this regard. Focusing on ways of governing un/healthy bodies in post-SARS Hong Kong, the article details a refined biopolitics, where longstanding mechanisms of social exclusion are combined with enhanced forms of social control through a mix of architectural, ideological and intelligence-gathering processes

Biopower · Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19 · Ideology · Pandemic · Political science · Politics · Social control · Social science · Sociology · Global Security and Public Health · Hong Kong and Taiwan Politics · Law · Medicine · Water Governance and Infrastructure