A history of borders and disease, written with the vectors

Alan Smart and Josephine Smart

Chapter 14 in Border Studies, 2025, pp 267-290 from Edward Elgar Publishing

Abstract: This chapter argues that the general field of border studies has insufficiently incorporated the historical influence of non-human life forms on border controls. It offers an alternative perspective, posthumanism, that facilitates incorporating disease vectors into our understanding of border history. We examine the history of interaction between rapidly transforming microorganisms and border control efforts, with a particular focus on zoonotic infectious diseases. Each section of the chapter builds from a brief account of key dimensions of bordering processes. These sections address mobility, controls at border, local spatial surveillance, control technologies, and the control and prevention of zoonoses. Each section ends with a discussion of our current pandemic, COVID-19. More effective controls and tracking technologies exert strong selective pressure on the coronavirus, prompting more successful variants that are better able to circumvent our controls and vaccines. Their self-transformation is heightened by our intensified and accelerated public health responses, so we are witnessing the first example of a fast, real-time interaction between disease evolution and control measures. Record-shattering fast vaccine development, as well as saving many lives, encouraged the emergence and rapid spread of new variants.

Keywords: Border controls; Zoonoses; Posthumanism; Surveillance; COVID-19 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2025
ISBN: 9781800375383
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