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In warfare, civil unrest, and political protest, chemicals have served as means of coercion, suppression, and manipulation. This book examines how chemical agents have been justified, utilised and resisted as means of control. Through attending to how, when, and for whom bodies become rendered as sites of intervention, Chemical Bodies demonstrates the inter-relations between geopolitical transformations and the technological, spatial and social components of local events.
The chapters draw out some of the insidious ways in which chemical technologies are damaging, and re-open discussion regarding their justification, role and regulation. In doing so the contributors illustrate how certain instances of force gain prominence (or fade into obscurity), how some individuals speak and others get spoken for, how definitions of what counts as 'success' and 'failure' are advanced, and how the rights and wrongs of violence are contested.
List of contents
Acknowledgements / Abbreviations / Transgressive Chemicals, Brian Rappert and Alex Mankoo / From Reviled Poisons to State Arsenals: The Un(necessary) Proliferation of Chemical Weapons, Jeanne Guillemin / Lesser Appreciations: A History of Inter-War Chemical Warfare, James Revill & Marcos Favero / Biological Warfare, Chemical Warfare and the Public Body, Etienne Aucouturier / Opening Spaces through Exhibiting Absences: Representing Secretive Pasts, Brian Rappert, Kathryn Smith, and Chandré Gould / Tear Gas Epistemology: The Himsworth Committee and Weapons as Drugs, Brian Balmer, Alex Spelling, Caitriona McLeish / What Counts as a Chemical Weapon?: The Category of Law Enforcement in the Chemical Weapons Convention, Michael Crowley / Tear Gas and Colonial Bodies in the British Interwar Period, Anna Feigenbaum / Controlling and Caring for Public Bodies: Civil Defence Gas Tests in WWII Britain, Alex Mankoo / 'Chemical Bodies' and the Future of Control, Alex Mankoo and Brian Rappert
About the author
Alex Mankoo is a PhD candidate in the Science and Technology Studies Department at University College London and a Visiting Fellow in the Science, Technology and Society Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government (Spring 2018). His research interests include the history of chemical and biological weapons, intersections between science and security, and the sociology of security technologies more generally. His PhD research, funded by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), focuses on the technological trajectory of teargas in mid-20th century Britain and the types of legitimacy it gained during this period.
Brian Rappert is a Professor of Science, Technology and Public Affairs at the University of Exeter. His long-term interest has been the examination of the strategic management of information; particularly in the relation to armed conflict. His books include Controlling the Weapons of War: Politics, Persuasion, and the Prohibition of Inhumanity; Biotechnology, Security and the Search for Limits; and Education and Ethics in the Life Science. More recently he has been interested in the social, ethical, and political issues associated with researching and writing about secrets, as in his books Experimental Secrets (2009), How to Look Good in a War (2012) and Dis-eases of Secrecy (2017). For more information see http://brianrappert.net/
Summary
In warfare, civil unrest, and political protest, chemicals have served as means of coercion, suppression, and manipulation. This book examines how chemical agents have been justified, utilised and resisted as means of control.
