Protein Matters
Protein Matters: Securitizing Zoonoses in the EU and the US
Head: Judith Miggelbrink, Frank Müller, Frank Meyer
Summary
Zoonoses – diseases that originate from animals and spread to human populations, such as rabies, SARS, or borreliosis – are usually considered to being a health problem (Corona is just the youngest candidate). However, they have also become a complex governmental and security issue. Travel restrictions, increased state surveillance and intensified policing activities are proof of this move to “securitize” zoonotic threats within today’s globalized world.
Moreover, zoonoses are a matter of security in other complex ways: Throughout human history, societies needed to organise sufficient and healthy food for their members, and governments have thus been responsible for guaranteeing food security, e.g. by introducing quality standards, regulating prices or punishing criminal actions. With increasing population density, food security does not only mean to provide enough food for everyone. The problem lies within the close proximity of humans and livestock in parts of the meat production chains, which increases the risk of spreading diseases across the globe as a consequence of today’s ubiquitous mobility of goods and people.
The provision of protein takes an important role in these governmental responses, with growing mass production of meat as one important driver of nutritional health, yet also of novel viruses, ever changing bacteria and of climate change. Although there is an increasing awareness of alternative and economically feasible supply chains based on non-animal dietary protein, regulatory frameworks for alternative proteins as a strategy to reduce risks of food-production-borne pathogens have not been implemented anywhere in the world. Yet, these alternative approaches are needed to decrease the possibility of future epidemics, while still being able to satisfy the needs of a growing global, urban population.
The project investigates how agroindustry, consumption habits, public discourses, and their regulation by law influence pandemics. Based on an analysis of past outbreaks of zoonotic epidemics and their impacts on supply chains in the EU and the USA, “Protein Matters” asks, what communication strategies, channels and media are used to raise public awareness for the link between agroindustry and zoonoses. Moreover, we are interested in the governmental strategies that are deployed in the EU and the USA to legitimize and create public support for containment policies and regulations.
Funded by Gerda-Henkel-Stiftung