Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin - Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie

Dr. Henning Füller at the Think&Drink Colloquium

Dr. Henning Füller, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin Pandemic cities. Biopolitical effects of changing infection control in post-SARS Hong Kong, Stadt- und Regionalsoziologie, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, 25.04.2016
  • Wann 25.04.2016 von 18:00 bis 20:00
  • Wo Raum 002: Universitätsstr. 3b, 10117 Berlin
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Dr. Henning Füller, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin

Pandemic cities. Biopolitical effects of changing infection control in post-SARS Hong Kong

 

The growing fear of an emerging pandemic has facilitated new efforts in infection control, where new technologies and laws have been introduced nationally and at the level of the WHO. This renewed emphasis on infection control is changing the character of Global Health. This is well described as a securitization 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 paper details a refined biopolitics, where long-standing mechanisms of social exclusion are combined with enhanced forms of social control through a mix of architectural, ideological and intelligence-gathering processes.