A Feminist Perspective on Bioterror: From Anthrax to Critical Art Ensemble
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Date
2007
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Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society
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Abstract
In autumn 2001 anthrax was intentionally released through the U.S. mail. With ancestry as ancient as goatskins and dispersal power enhanced by military lab technology, the deadly bacilli puffed through mail‐sorting machines and seeped into the skin and lungs of postal workers sorting congressional mail. Symbolically fused with the intentional crashing of four passenger planes by terrorists wielding box cutters, the deliberate release of weaponized anthrax triggered renewed efforts to fight the so‐called war on terror at home with a special mandate in the area of bioterror. Since then, basic democratic liberties have been traded for untenable and perverse illusions of safety and control in the polymorphous name of protection from terror. Our critical analysis of the interactive fears and responses generated in and by the bioterror debate between 2001 and 2006 in the United States addresses the militarization of public health and the loss of human rights protections. Using a feminist approach that juxtaposes discourses from apparently disparate domains of art, law, and science, we examine the rationales and effects of letting the military and private corporations infiltrate, profit by, and exert power over institutions responsible for the public’s health. We reframe the debate by contrasting the government's response to perceived threats of extrastate terrorism with the historical normalization of domestic sexual terrorism, including anthrax‐laced mail sent to reproductive choice clinics. To understand both the deeply submerged and the extraordinarily apparent gendered and racial logics that structure news, policy, and even scholarly communications in this arena, we examine a federal criminal case against an artist whose work is critical of bioengineering and bioterror industries; racial bias in the government’s response to the risks experienced by postal workers—primarily African American—as a result of the deliberate, criminal release of anthrax from a government lab; and the government’s measured response to the inadvertent importation of anthrax to New York City by an African dancer and drum maker. We conclude with recommendations for how government efforts might reorient toward best practices to promote the public’s health and safety.
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Kane, Stephanie. "A feminist perspective on bioterror: From anthrax to Critical Art Ensemble. Special Issue on “War and Terror: Race-Gendered Logics and Effects beyond Conflict Zones," Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society: 33(1):53-80. (with P. Greenhill)
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