The triad of quarantines, neo-hygienism and securitization in SARS-CoV-2: Genetic matrix of the doctrine of Pan-American healthism

Working Group on International Health and Health Sovereignty

The CLACSO Working Group on International Health and Health Sovereignty presents the Special Edition of the South-South International Health Dossier, a joint work of the FLACSO RD International Health Program (Dominican Republic Program) and the Health Area of ​​IDEP-Institute of Participation and State Studies (Argentina).

In the introduction, the author argues that “The generalization and normalization of empirical quarantines, (neo)hygienism with medical policing in national territories, and global securitization are key elements for understanding the new nexus between security and health in the incidence of Covid-19, assuming that too many collective health problems are now framed within the narrative of global health security and national security. It is important to study the implications of this expansive movement and ask whether it is merely a concept for limiting the cross-border spread of infectious diseases and what risks it poses by normalizing these security interventions in the field of collective health. The international and regional epidemiological crisis of SARS-CoV-2 fully activated a set of mechanisms embedded in the genetic matrix of Pan-American healthism in Latin America and the Caribbean: both in its biomedicalized and public health approaches, as well as in a progressive 20th-century medical-social perspective, which shaped several generations of Latin American and Caribbean public health professionals. This article seeks to review the a triad of concepts currently operationalized in the global and regional scenario of the response to the epidemic risk of Covid-19 and to analyze and reflect on the assumptions made by quarantines (today anti-Covid), secondly, public (neo)hygienism and, lastly, the implementation of global health securitization as a fundamental premise of liberal global health.”

Author: Gonzalo Basile