Pigs, people and politics: the (re)drawing of Denmark’s biological, politico-geographical, and genomic ‘borders’

Abstract

This paper tracks the regulation of the border crossings of pigs and people in and out of Denmark. By bringing together pig and human unborn life, fully fledged bodies, and genomes, I direct analytical attention to the governance of entangled living things. Where existing scholarship has unravelled how central animal-based institutions build up the nation, I investigate how pig–human entanglements at biological, spatial, and genomic margins make the nation. First, I examine how pig breeding and human reproductive policies regulate the biological ‘borders’ through which pigs and humans may enter the Danish nation. Second, I scrutinise how wild boar fences and human immigration policies regulate the entrance of pigs and human migrants at the Danish geographical borders. Third, I examine how scientific, political, and financial investments into precision medicine shape the genomic ‘borders’ regulating the containment and movement of pig and human genomes. I argue that the intertwined processes of selection and care are at the centre of administering the entry points to Denmark. In the Danish context, selecting pig and human lives at these various ‘borders’ is conceptually linked to securing universal care and a high level of equality for humans already belonging within the nation.

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