Technology, Inclusivity and the Rogue: Bats and the War Against the 'Invisible Enemy'

Abstract

Although tempting to envisage the emerging violence in conservation as either against nature or in defence of it, this paper argues that such violence is increasingly between 'the included' and 'rogues' in ways that transcend the nature : society binary. The paper traces how the emergence of these battle lines is associated with the digital information revolution that is producing discourses and practices of 'inclusion' that embrace social and natural worlds, whilst recasting a hitherto knowable and governable 'excluded' as more unknowable and threatening 'rogues'. Accordingly, the paper then illustrates how the battle against the 'invisible enemy' of Ebola was fought not just against rogue viruses but against rogue bats, rogue deforesters and rogue patients, transcending any nature: human binary, and similarly that sustainable solutions are being sought in rearranging landscapes within an inclusive 'One Health' approach.