Biological Weapons Testing at Porton Down
The Strategic Effacement of Nonhuman Animals, 1947–1955
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6148839 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Catherine Duxbury (0000-0002-6258-3702, London School of Economics and Political Science, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 14 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Publication date | 2023-10-26 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Humanimalia (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2151-8645 • E-ISSN: 2151-8645 |
| Publisher | Humanimalia, Utrecht University (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.52537/humanimalia.12804 |
| OpenAlex | W4388203927 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 17 |
This article focuses on the use of nonhuman animals for biological weapons testing by military scientists at Porton Down Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, 1948–1955. After the end of the Second World War and the beginning of the Cold War, the British state and its allies invested in new military technologies which could ensure their superiority in times of conflict. My analysis reveals the partial workings of the Porton Down Laboratory through its historical use of nonhuman animals. I demonstrate that nonhuman animals were simultaneously effaced and made visible during biological warfare experiments. This effacement and visibility was dependent on anthropocentric notions of animal subjection whereby their use in experiments made them “seen” as resources for use, yet paradoxically elicited their nonexistence as subjects. I extend the notion of “strategic ignorance” to develop a novel concept of “strategic effacement” to demonstrate this contradictory relationship which both impacted scientific “objectivity” and contributed to the continued exploitation of animals in the laboratory
Anthropocentrism · Biological warfare · Cold war · Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ignorance · Objectivity (philosophy · Political science · Sociology · Geographies of human-animal interactions · Historical Studies and Socio-cultural Analysis · History of Science and Medicine · Law · Philosophy
The Animal Estate
Care in the Cage
Routledge International Handbook of Ignorance Studies
War and its Bestiality
The drift of biological weapons policy in the UK 1945–1965
Killing `Without the Distressing Preliminaries
The Shortcomings of Indeterminacy in Arms Control Regimes
Four-Legged Poilus ”
Animal Rights
The ‘Smooth Cool Men of Science
Modernity and Holocaust
The logic of strategic ignorance
The Body We Care for
Primate Visions
Challenges for Historians Writing Animal-Human History
Strategic unknowns
On the will to ignorance in bureaucracy
| Highly cited | No |
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