EGENIS seminar: "Building Corrective Citizenship in Corporate Pig Farms: Biosecurity, Precarity and Labour's Health in Post-African Swine Fever China", Dr Kin Wing (Ray) Chan (The Royal Agricultural University)
Egenis seminar series
This paper examines how corporate biosecurity regimes in Post-African Swine Fever (ASF) China transform labour subjectivities through a novel form of citizenship building – corrective citizenship. It contributes to the scholarly debates on biopolitics and biosecurity citizenship by demonstrating how biosecurity practices in Chinese corporate pig farms not only safeguard animal health but also regulate workers’ behaviours, identities and well-being.
| An Egenis, the Centre for the Study of Life Sciences seminar | |
|---|---|
| Date | 24 March 2025 |
| Time | 15:30 to 17:00 |
| Place | Hybrid |
Event details
Through ethnographic observation and in-depth interviews with farm workers and managers in Jiangxi Province, this study reveals how corporate biosecurity measures such as - Standard Operation Procedures (SOPs), antiseptic regimens and ideological training - discipline workers into compliance subjects, framing their adherence as a patriotic and economic duty. Unlike Petryna’s biological citizenship, which emphasizes care and rights, corrective citizenship compels workers to embody biosecurity norms as an enforced condition of employment. This study argues that corrective citizenship reinforces social inequalities and unjust by transforming biosecurity in a mechanism of labour governance, where workers internalise corporate control over their bodies, movement and social interactions within and beyond the farm gate. The findings contribute to broader debates on labour precarity, labour health studies and biopolitical control in industrial agriculture, highlighting how biosecurity regimes extend beyond disease management to fundamentally reshape the workforce in China’s agri-business sector.
Venue Byrne House (spaces limited)
Virtual via Zoom
Free to attend. Register here
