Cyborg Preparedness: Incorporating Knowing and Caring Bodies into Emergency Infrastructures

Abstract

ABSTRACTBiopreparedness exercises are commonly depicted as indispensable means to enable people to respond to outbreaks of highly pathogenic infectious diseases. In this article, based on a 4-year multisited ethnography conducted in Frankfurt and London, we argue that exercises mobilize past and present events in a continuous rehearsal for the implementation and stabilization of emergency infrastructures. While relying on the embodied knowledge and the body techniques of its participants, these infrastructures necessitate continuous attention, investment, and training. Through these techniques, preventive assemblages create what we term “cyborg preparedness,” whereby human bodies, clinical architectures, and technical artifacts are subject to emerging forms of urban governance.