Molecular Sovereignty: Building a Blood Screening Test for the Brazilian Nation

This article interrogates the relationship between the development of national diagnostic technologies and the exercise of sovereignty, by analysing a Brazilian project to produce a nucleic acid test (NAT) for the country’s blood screening programme. The concept of ‘molecular sovereignty’ is propose...

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Autor principal:	Koichi Kameda
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	University of Edinburgh Library 2021
Materias:	blood diagnostic tests molecularisation sovereignty global health brazil Anthropology GN1-890 Medicine (General) R5-920
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/1f8fa2fe000147749a24ffd3c1d417a9
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:1f8fa2fe000147749a24ffd3c1d417a92021-11-08T12:34:28ZMolecular Sovereignty: Building a Blood Screening Test for the Brazilian Nation2405-691X10.17157/mat.8.2.5122https://doaj.org/article/1f8fa2fe000147749a24ffd3c1d417a92021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttp://www.medanthrotheory.org/article/view/5122https://doaj.org/toc/2405-691XThis article interrogates the relationship between the development of national diagnostic technologies and the exercise of sovereignty, by analysing a Brazilian project to produce a nucleic acid test (NAT) for the country’s blood screening programme. The concept of ‘molecular sovereignty’ is proposed to demonstrate that exercising sovereignty demands not only technological resources but also a sufficiently powerful and national imaginary to support local knowledge production as a means of advancing national healthcare priorities. First, this research article contextualises the political importance of blood safety for Brazil during its transition to democracy in the 1980s and the creation of its universal healthcare system. Then, it investigates how adopting the NAT led the state to invest in the production of a national technology. Third, the article unpacks the diagnostic test to consider how certain aspects of the project might ultimately strengthen the ability of global capital to cross national boundaries and create new markets. Lastly, it discusses how the project ended up creating a centralised and ‘closed’ system to avoid leaving the country vulnerable to the entry of global diagnostic companies. This case demonstrates how the molecularisation of blood, through the construction of a unified healthcare system driven by the constitutional right to health, can be deployed to construct imagined communities on the scale of a nation.Koichi KamedaUniversity of Edinburgh Libraryarticleblooddiagnostic testsmolecularisationsovereigntyglobal healthbrazilAnthropologyGN1-890Medicine (General)R5-920ENMedicine Anthropology Theory, Vol 8, Iss 2, Pp 1-25 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	blood diagnostic tests molecularisation sovereignty global health brazil Anthropology GN1-890 Medicine (General) R5-920
spellingShingle	blood diagnostic tests molecularisation sovereignty global health brazil Anthropology GN1-890 Medicine (General) R5-920 Koichi Kameda Molecular Sovereignty: Building a Blood Screening Test for the Brazilian Nation
description	This article interrogates the relationship between the development of national diagnostic technologies and the exercise of sovereignty, by analysing a Brazilian project to produce a nucleic acid test (NAT) for the country’s blood screening programme. The concept of ‘molecular sovereignty’ is proposed to demonstrate that exercising sovereignty demands not only technological resources but also a sufficiently powerful and national imaginary to support local knowledge production as a means of advancing national healthcare priorities. First, this research article contextualises the political importance of blood safety for Brazil during its transition to democracy in the 1980s and the creation of its universal healthcare system. Then, it investigates how adopting the NAT led the state to invest in the production of a national technology. Third, the article unpacks the diagnostic test to consider how certain aspects of the project might ultimately strengthen the ability of global capital to cross national boundaries and create new markets. Lastly, it discusses how the project ended up creating a centralised and ‘closed’ system to avoid leaving the country vulnerable to the entry of global diagnostic companies. This case demonstrates how the molecularisation of blood, through the construction of a unified healthcare system driven by the constitutional right to health, can be deployed to construct imagined communities on the scale of a nation.
format	article
author	Koichi Kameda
author_facet	Koichi Kameda
author_sort	Koichi Kameda
title	Molecular Sovereignty: Building a Blood Screening Test for the Brazilian Nation
title_short	Molecular Sovereignty: Building a Blood Screening Test for the Brazilian Nation
title_full	Molecular Sovereignty: Building a Blood Screening Test for the Brazilian Nation
title_fullStr	Molecular Sovereignty: Building a Blood Screening Test for the Brazilian Nation
title_full_unstemmed	Molecular Sovereignty: Building a Blood Screening Test for the Brazilian Nation
title_sort	molecular sovereignty: building a blood screening test for the brazilian nation
publisher	University of Edinburgh Library
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/1f8fa2fe000147749a24ffd3c1d417a9
work_keys_str_mv	AT koichikameda molecularsovereigntybuildingabloodscreeningtestforthebraziliannation
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Molecular Sovereignty: Building a Blood Screening Test for the Brazilian Nation

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