| ID | 081452 |
| Title Proper | Risking lives |
| Other Title Information | AIDS, security and three concepts of risk |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Elbe, Stefan |
| Publication | 2008. |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | This article analyses the conjunctures of risk and security that have recently emerged in the securitization of HIV/AIDS. Although these partially corroborate Ulrich Beck's notion of risk society, important elements of the securitization of HIV/AIDS resist his understanding of risk as a `danger of modernization'. The article therefore turns to François Ewald's alternative theorization of risk as a `neologism of insurance', and shows that insurance is a risk-based security practice widely used to manage the welfare of populations. Such a biopolitical approach to risk is also valuable for analysing the securitization of HIV/AIDS, which, even though it is unfolding outside the domain of insurance, similarly draws upon multiple risk categories (`security risks', `risk groups' and `risk factors') in efforts to improve the collective health of populations. Analysed through a wider concept of risk as a `biopolitical rationality', the conjuncture of risk and security in the securitization of HIV/AIDS thus emerges as a principal site where the institutions of sovereign power in international relations are being absorbed and integrated within a wider biopolitical economy of power. |
| `In' analytical Note | Security Dialogue Vol. 39, No.2-3; Apr-Jun 2008: p177-198 |
| Journal Source | Security Dialogue Vol. 39, No.2-3; Apr-Jun 2008: p177-198 |
| Key Words | AIDS ; Biopolitics ; Risk ; Security ; UNAIDS |