The research will show how scientists engaging in biosecurity define which life forms are considered natively Mexican and which are alien; how biological research is used to define which human practices foster the continued growth and development of good, native species or microbial or viral strains; and which practices facilitate the spread of dangerous, alien species that put local ecologies and life at risk. This project will follow groups of scientists engaged in various forms of biosecurity research, from assessing the risk of genetically modified organisms, to controlling invasive species and restoring native ones, to protecting human biosecurity against emerging infectious disease.
Broader impact
Biosecurity practices affect a wide range of human activity as the scientific knowledge produced is translated into governmental regulations and projects to protect health and ecologies. The ideas about biosecurity developed in laboratories have the potential to affect agriculture, trade, health, and environmental practices in Mexico; this project will study this process in detail. More abstractly, studying the construction of this knowledge will contribute to understanding connections between nature, nation, and identity in Mexico. Following the development of biosecurity research will also contribute to understanding of how ideas of Mexican national biologies are incorporated into scientific institutions and practices, including mestizaje (or mixture), patrimony, and the linkages between people, plants, and places.
This project investigated the development of new biosecurity practices in Mexico. Biosecurity practices in Mexico encompass issues ranging from the spread of H1N1 influenza to the travel of transgenic crops and invasive species. Based on ethnographic research with ecologists and microbiologists, this project studied how scientists define and protect human and non-human Mexican populations from a variety of threats. Scientists engaging in biosecurity projects use biological research to define which human practices foster the continued growth and development of good, native species or microbial or viral strains, and which facility the spread of dangerous, alien species that put local ecologies and life at risk. These practices are tied to the production of identity; they establish who or what belongs within a group, and who or what is threatening to that identity. In this research, I looked at the role of science in defining the nation and producing national security, drawing on work by anthropologists studying genomics and race to look at how new scientific research is used to reinforce older social categories. I argue that these categories have new salience in terms of security, and further, that genomic difference and national identity are increasingly extended to non-human life forms. This research is based on participant observation research with scientists at a hospital and research institute in Mexico City, at an NGO working on invasive species eradication, and at a federal institute focused on ecological issues. Through ethnographic research at these organizations, I examined how science and technology travel outside of elite, Western, well-funded laboratories, and how practices of knowledge production, institution building, and transnational connections develop in Mexico, contributing to anthropological research on global technoscientific initiatives. While scholars studying global technoscientific networks have argued that these networks are gaining power at the expense of the nation-state, I argue that this is not the case in Mexico, and my research shows how scientific and political biosecurity projects, ranging from border control to genomic research, work to shore up the viability of the Mexican nation-state. As the biological is increasingly interpreted in Mexican science and policy in the register of the genome, and Mexican biologists construct populations and identities in terms of genetic substance, the laboratory is now an obligatory passage point for understanding the biotic substance of the nation. Biosecurity takes place in transnational contexts, but it is ultimately about shoring up national borders and defining national identities in biological terms. This project contributes to our understanding of postcolonial science and nation-building, the connections between nature, nation, and identity, and how ideas of self and place in the world are implicated in the practice of life scientists. My analysis addresses the ways in which biological research and technological development produce new understandings of nature, transforming material practices and uses of the environment.
