HEALTH SECURITY AS PRACTICE: A PRAXIOGRAPHIC STUDY OF ROUTINE HEALTH SECURITY AT THE UK BORDER

This thesis contributes the first in-depth empirical analysis of routine health security practice at the UK Border. In combining recent theoretical developments in critical security studies with original empirical material, the core contribution of this thesis is illuminating the mechanics of prophylactic procedures in place continually, rather than emergent measures in response to public health emergencies. In sum, this thesis shows that a cordon sanitaire is in place all the time. Moving away from existing approaches to health security rooted in the Copenhagen School’s popular securitisation framework, this thesis explores the everyday routine practices at play designed to mitigate and manage health security risk. On the one hand, securitisation has opened fruitful lines of enquiry, and has situated health security squarely within the post-Cold War International Relations (IR) research agenda. On the other hand, accounts informed by securitisation tend to reduce (health) security to a coherent and totalising ‘crisis modality’ of problem definition and problem resolution, and consequently deemphasise everyday routines and risk management. The upshot of securitisation’s prevalence is that questions surrounding what takes place routinely in the space between singular, exceptional events are largely unanswered in the literature. Assuming a practice theoretical approach to health security, this thesis draws on a twelve-month praxiographic study of practice at the UK Border. Extensive periods of non-participant observation of Port Health Officers (PHOs) – who are responsible for infectious disease prophylaxis and the management of imports – give a unique, privileged entry point for analysis and critique of accepted knowledge about health security. In shedding light on the moving bodies, artefacts, and knowledge at play constantly at the border, this thesis presents an alternative reading of health security.