The vice of biosecurity: tightening restrictions on life to counter avian influenza in Japan

Abstract

Outbreaks of avian influenza spread across political boundaries, and migratory birds are often scapegoated as vectors for the disease. This paper develops the vice of biosecurity to explain the tendency for conventional biosecurity to urge for greater restrictions on life that prove difficult to reverse and at times hazard increasing the risks arising from emerging infectious diseases. Drawing on a case study of avian influenza in Japan, this paper analyses the emergence of avian influenza and biosecurity responses to this disease. Avian influenza enacts a unique disease ecology that officials attempt to control by enforcing borders between Japanese/foreign territory, farmed/wild birds and healthy/infected life. Since facing heavy criticism for its initial responses, the Japanese state developed protocols for the swift testing and culling of chickens at infected farms. The worst season for avian influenza outbreaks occurred in the winter of 2020–21, which coincided with the Covid-19 pandemic. Through the vice of biosecurity, this paper draws attention to the problematic dynamic through which biosecurity measures are continually tightened as a first step in shifting towards a set of a biosecurity practices that are more accepting of the dynamism, diversity and mobility of life.