Zoonotic Politics: The Impossible Bordering of the Leaky Boundaries of Species
| Author | Erika Cudworth,Stephen Hobden |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/03058298221110921 |
| Published date | 01 July 2022 |
| Date | 01 July 2022 |
| Subject Matter | Original Articles |
https://doi.org/10.1177/03058298221110921
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2023, Vol. 50(3) 647 –668
© The Author(s) 2022
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DOI: 10.1177/03058298221110921
journals.sagepub.com/home/mil
Zoonotic Politics: The
Impossible Bordering of the
Leaky Boundaries of Species
Erika Cudworth
De Montford University, UK
Stephen Hobden
University of East London, UK
Abstract
Zoonotic pandemics shine an uncomfortable light on how human lifeways facilitate the sharing
of pathogens across species. Yet our lack of acknowledgement of our shared vulnerability with
those non-human animals we raise or hunt to kill and eat, whose habitats we encroach upon and
destroy, whose populations we undermine and threaten, has led us to the current human health
crisis. The predominant political response to zoonotic pandemic has been bordering practices of
surveillance, securitisation and bodily separation. These practices reflect intra-human and species
hierarchies. They also fail to acknowledge the extent to which the boundaries of species are
leaky, and are continually breached. A posthumanist zoonotic politics seeks not to attempt to
border the leaky boundaries of species, but rather to insist on a re-ordering of species relations
towards less exploitative and extractive ways of sharing the planet with the myriad creatures that
constitute our world.
Keywords
Bordering, Posthumanism, Zoonoses
Politique zoonotique : l’impossible confinement des espèces
Résumé
Les pandémies zoonotiques soulignent avec malaise la façon dont les comportements humains
facilitent la diffusion d’agents pathogènes entre les espèces. Pourtant, le déni face à notre
vulnérabilité commune avec les animaux non humains que nous élevons ou chassons pour les
tuer et les manger, dont nous envahissons et détruisons les habitats, dont nous fragilisons et
Corresponding author:
Erika Cudworth, De Montfort University, The Gateway, Leicester, LE1 9BH, UK.
Email: erika.cudworth@dmu.ac.uk
1110921MIL0010.1177/03058298221110921Millennium -–Journal of International StudiesCudworth and Hobden
research-article2022
Original Article
648 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 50(3)
1. John L. Romano, ‘Politics of Prevention: Reflections on the COVID-19 Pandemic’, Journal
of Prevention and Public Health Promotion 1, no. 1 (2020): 34–57.
2. Michael H. Fuchs, ‘Trump’s UN Speech was a Bizarre Feat of Gaslighting and Fantasy’,
The Guardian, 24 September 2020. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/comment-
isfree/2020/sep/24/trumps-un-speech-was-a-bizarre-feat-of-gaslighting-and-fantasy. Last
accessed June 23, 2022.
menaçons les populations, nous a conduit à la crise sanitaire humaine actuelle. La principale
réponse politique à la pandémie zoonotique a pris la forme de pratiques de confinement à travers
la surveillance, la sécurisation et la distanciation physique. Ces pratiques reflètent les hiérarchies
qui existent parmi les humains et parmi les espèces. Elles passent aussi sous silence la porosité
des frontières entre les espèces et leur franchissement continuel. Une politique zoonotique
posthumaniste ne s’évertue pas de délimiter les frontières entre les espèces, mais insiste plutôt
sur une réorientation des relations entre les espèces, vers une coexistence moins abusive et
moins extractiviste avec la multitude de créatures qui peuplent notre monde.
Mots-clés
confinement, posthumanisme, zoonoses
Políticas zoonóticas: La imposible fronterización de los permeables límites
de las especies
Resumen
Las pandemias zoonóticas arrojan una incómoda luz sobre cómo los modos de vida humanos
facilitan el intercambio de patógenos entre especies. Sin embargo, no reconocer la vulnerabilidad
que compartimos con los animales no humanos que criamos o cazamos para matarlos y
comerlos, cuyos hábitats invadimos y destruimos, cuyas poblaciones diezmamos y amenazamos,
nos ha llevado a la actual crisis sanitaria humana. La respuesta política predominante frente a
la pandemia zoonótica ha consistido en prácticas fronterizadoras de vigilancia, securitización y
separación corporal. Estas prácticas reflejan jerarquías intrahumanas y respecto de las especies.
Y no reconocen hasta qué punto los límites de las especies son permeables y se traspasan
continuamente. Una política zoonótica poshumanista no pretende fronterizar los permeables
límites de las especies, sino que insiste en una reordenación de las relaciones entre especies, a la
búsqueda de formas menos explotadoras y extractivas de compartir el planeta con la miríada de
criaturas que constituyen nuestro mundo.
Palabras clave
Fronterización, poshumanismo, zoonosis
Introduction
Human publics are now more aware than ever of the presence and threat of zoonotic
pandemics, originating in nonhuman animals; with microbial agents leaping from animal
to human bodies. The dominant discourses constituting zoonotic politics have reflected
our colonial present. The early stages of the pandemic saw racialised other peoples and
practices from the continents of Africa and Asia being demonised and responsibilised.1
Former US President Donald Trump infamously and repeatedly referred to COVID-19 as
‘the Chinese virus’ and as a ‘plague’ that China had issued into the world.2 This certainly
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