Emily Waller

Immunity, Biopolitics and Pandemics Public and Individual Responses to the Threat to Life

This article examines discourse on immunity in general public engagements with pandemic influenza in light of critical theory on immuno-politics and bodily integrity. Interview and focus group discussions on influenza with members of the general public reveal that, despite endorsement of government advice on how to avoid infection, influenza is seen as, ultimately, unavoidable. In place of prevention, members of the general public speak of immunity as the means of coping with influenza infection. Such talk on corporeal life under microbial threat is informed by self/not-self, network and ‘choice’ immunity, and therefore makes considerable allowance for cosmopolitan traffic with others, microbes, ‘dirt’ and immune-boosting consumer products. The immuno-political orientation of members of the general public, therefore, appears to trend towards a productive cosmopolitanism that contrasts with more orthodox bioscientific and governmental approaches to pandemic influenza. We reflect on the implications of the immuno-cosmopolitanism of everyday life for the advent of global public health emergency and for biopolitical rule in general.

Biography, pandemic time and risk: Pregnant women reflecting on their experiences of the 2009 influenza pandemic

During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, it was identified that women in the third trimester of pregnancy were particularly at risk of serious respiratory distress. At-risk women were advised to seek vaccination, avoid contact with anyone unwell, maintain hygiene routines and stop smoking. We examine this situation of emergent and intense risk produced at the intersection of individual biography and the historical event of a public health emergency. We examine how pregnant women took account of risk, how they negotiated incomplete and at times contradictory advice and shaped courses of action that assisted them to manage the emerging terrain of pandemic threat. Public health risk management advice was endorsed, although choosing vaccination was fraught. Social distancing, too, was seen as a valuable risk moderation strategy. However, time, and specifically the intersection of individual pregnancy timelines with the pandemic’s timeline, was also seen as an important risk management resource. The implications of this mix of sanctioned and temporal risk management practices are discussed.

Understanding pandemic influenza behaviour: An exploratory biopsychosocial study:

Pandemic influenza represents an ongoing public health threat. Understanding the associated behavioural domain is vital for future intervention development. Cross-sectional qualitative research employing purposive sampling employed a combination of one-to-one semi-structured interviews (n = 57) and focus groups (n = 59). Data were analysed using (1) inductive thematic analysis and (2) theoretical thematic analysis focusing upon resonance with psychosocial and sociocultural constructs. Two broad themes highlighted an important duality regarding the determinants of pandemic behaviour: (1) psychosocial determinants (e.g. agency, cognitions and identity) and (2) sociocultural determinants (e.g. social context and capacity). These findings suggest this duality should shape future intervention development.

Australia’s pandemic influenza ‘Protect’ phase: emerging out of the fog of pandemic

Recent sociological analyses of contemporary emergency planning foreground a potential break between preparedness plans animated by the spectre of an imaginary future catastrophe and classical public health efforts that are anchored in close knowledge of populations and efforts to prevent the transmission of disease. Whilst scholarly analysis to date suggests that the distinct rationales of public health governance underpinning these different approaches are likely to be entwined and to work in productive tension with each other, less attention has been paid to how this tension plays out in practice. Using 27 semi-structured interviews with public health experts involved in the development or implementation of Australia’s pandemic influenza plan, this paper examines how preparedness efforts established in anticipation of a catastrophic threat were reconfigured during the Australian 2009 (H1N1) pandemic influenza. Specifically, one Australian state broke with the national plan and rapidly inserted an entirely new pandemic phase – which became known as ‘Protect’ – into their response, thereby providing a critical reorientation in the ‘fog of pandemic’. Our analysis indicates that classical population health efforts interrupted not only the vision of catastrophe embedded within the plans, but the actual plans and their implementation, forcing the public health response in a new direction.

Beyond resistance: social factors in the general public response to pandemic influenza

BackgroundInfluencing the general public response to pandemics is a public health priority. There is a prevailing view, however, that the general public is resistant to communications on pandemic influenza and that behavioural responses to the 2009/10 H1N1 pandemic were not sufficient. Using qualitative methods, this paper investigates how members of the general public respond to pandemic influenza and the hygiene, social isolation and other measures proposed by public health. Going beyond the commonly deployed notion that the general public is resistant to public health communications, this paper examines how health individualism, gender and real world constraints enable and limit individual action.MethodsIn-depth interviews (n = 57) and focus groups (ten focus groups; 59 individuals) were conducted with community samples in Melbourne, Sydney and Glasgow. Participants were selected according to maximum variation sampling using purposive criteria, including: 1) pregnancy in 2009/2010; 2) chronic illness; 3) aged 70 years and over; 4) no disclosed health problems. Verbatim transcripts were subjected to inductive, thematic analysis.ResultsRespondents did not express resistance to public health communications, but gave insight into how they interpreted and implemented guidance. An individualistic approach to pandemic risk predominated. The uptake of hygiene, social isolation and vaccine strategies was constrained by seeing oneself ‘at risk’ but not ‘a risk’ to others. Gender norms shape how members of the general public enact hygiene and social isolation. Other challenges pertained to over-reliance on perceived remoteness from risk, expectation of recovery from infection and practical constraints on the uptake of vaccination.ConclusionsOverall, respondents were engaged with public health advice regarding pandemic influenza, indicating that the idea of public resistance has limited explanatory power. Public communications are endorsed, but challenges persist. Individualistic approaches to pandemic risk inhibit acting for the benefit of others and may deepen divisions in the community according to health status. Public communications on pandemics are mediated by gender norms that may overburden women and limit the action of men. Social research on the public response to pandemics needs to focus on the social structures and real world settings and relationships that shape the action of individuals.

Gabrielle Simm. Sex in Peace Operations

Reports of international personnel perpetrating acts of sexual exploitation and abuse against the very population they are mandated to protect are a disturbing outcome of peace operations. Over the past two decades, a series of scandals implicating a wide array of international personnel in peacekeeping missions have gained international media attention. As a result, the United Nations (UN) and other organizations have taken broad institutional responses largely through policies and strategies to “eliminate” such serious acts of “misconduct.” Gabrielle Simm investigates these efforts in her book, Sex in Peace Operations, offering a critical re-examination of the regulation of sex between international actors and local populations in peace missions. Employing a novel interpretive route to her proposed conclusions, Simm makes two important contributions. First, she explores international law through a regulatory framework in examining sex in peace operations. She presents an accessible articulation of regulation scholarship within the complex terrain of peacekeeping. Second, Simm provides a “feminist engagement with, and critique of, regulatory studies” (178) with an aim to elucidate the connections between the two fields. In doing so, Simm defines regulation as “the intentional activity of attempting to control, order or influence behaviour of others” (15). This combined feminist, legal and regulatory mode of analysis leads to a powerful interdisciplinary exploration of sex in peace missions. The scope of this book is wide-ranging. Rather than focus solely on sexual crimes perpetrated by peacekeeping forces, as many previous scholars have done, her analysis uses a broader lens to also examine humanitarian and nongovernmental organization workers and private military contractors, all of whom play increasingly critical roles in post-conflict settings. Their inclusion is important given local perspectives may be unable to distinguish between the different personnel, and by extension, their corresponding reporting and accountability mechanisms. In taking this broader approach, she is able to compare various legal regimes and accountability mechanisms across the three categories of international personnel and explore different approaches to regulating sex in peace operations. Simm’s analysis demonstrates that the “zero tolerance” policy now widely used in a number of operations is not a one-size-fits-all mode of regulation. As such, considering its limitations and shortcomings, both from an international law and gender perspective and across a wide array of actors and situations, is essential to better understanding the complexities of these relationships on the ground. While it would be easy to solely focus on the more shocking behavior of sexual exploitation and abuse, Simm recognizes the landscape of sexual relations in the field includes a gray area of “less-widely reported, but nonexploitative sexual relations between peacekeepers and local populations” (1). In acknowledging a spectrum of “relationships,” Simm offers a more

Strengthening gender justice in the Asia-Pacific through the Rome Statute

Many conflicts in the Asia-Pacific region have included sexual violence crimes targeted primarily against women. However, in comparison to other regions, Asia-Pacific states have been reluctant to embrace international law innovations to end impunity for such crimes into the future, as evidenced by their unwillingness to become signatories to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Of the 39 countries constituting the Asia-Pacific region, only 17—less than half—have joined the Rome Statute. This article initially surveys some of the reasons for non-ratification of the Statute. It further examines the role of civil society and the potential normative impact of the Statute to enhance national sexual violence legislation and prosecutions. Finally, it identifies some practical steps that the Australian government could take to encourage regional states to ratify, implement and enforce the Rome Statute in order to further protect all victims of international crimes and bolster the broader Women, Peace and Security framework.