Lessons from the Viral Body Politic: Borders and the Possibilities of a More-than-Human Worldmaking

Abstract

Bordering practices have been a central and controversial feature of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Closed borders, lockdowns, and restrictions on movement and individual "freedoms”have revived concepts of the biopo- litical "state of exception”and state control. In this article, we argue that biopolitical critiques of responses to the pandemic fail to grasp the op- portunity to rethink worldmaking and instead base their critiques on a desired "return to normal”which foregrounds human-centric individual- ism at the expense of alternative worldmaking that accounts for the more- than-human. To do so, we bring the virus and the virome into our discus- sion to rethink bordering practices and how the SARS-CoV-2 virus affects bodies, worlds, and politics. We focus primarily on the Australian case, where the pandemic response began with lockdowns and then gave way to a militarized and individualistic approach. Responses to the pandemic have failed to produce a reimagining of human and more-than-human re- lations. Opportunities for ethical engagement have been missed, resulting in limited responses that stem from the failure of state capacity and en- trenched modes of inequality that are harmful to vulnerable others, both human and more-than-human. This requires an ontological reframing of how we relate to a complex world from a more-than-human perspective.