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

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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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Notes

  1. A much longer account of pig breeding, eugenics, and prenatal diagnostics can be found in my forthcoming book (Svendsen 2022).

  2. Although agricultural products constitute one of Denmark’s biggest exports, their contribution to the country’s GDP was only around 2 percent in 2015 (Pedersen and Møllenberg 2016, 7).

  3. The following descriptions of the controversy over the wild boar fence and the short history of human immigration policies in Denmark also appear in my forthcoming book (Svendsen 2022).

  4. Jyske Vestkysten May 3, 2018, https://jv.dk/artikel/solidt-flertal-%C3%B8nsker-et-vildsvinehegn.

  5. Berlingske June 4, 2018, https://www.b.dk/politiko/vildsvinehegn-ved-graensen-faar-groent-lys.

  6. Prime Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said this in February 2016. The recording of his statement was broadcast on the national news December 7, 2017 (TV AVISEN 9:30 pm).

  7. For example, in 2015, the Danish government introduced cuts in social benefits to asylum seekers of 45 per cent and in 2016, the government adopted new rules making people with temporary protection status wait for a period of three years to apply for family reunification.

  8. After the 2019 Danish elections, the power shifted from centre-right to centre-left. The Social Democratic leader, Mette Frederiksen, became Prime Minister. The new government cancelled the plan for establishing a centre for rejected asylum seekers on Lindholm, yet did not aim for a change in the country’s strict migration policies.

  9. Between 1923 and 1938, 86 of them were sterilised (https://sundogbaelt.dk/pigerne-paa-sprogoe/).

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Carrie Friese, Tarquin Holmes, and Reuben Message for organising the highly stimulating workshop on national cultures of animals, care and science at London School of Economics and for subsequently putting together this special issue. Thank you to the organisers and the workshop participants for their generous and insightful comments to an earlier version of this article. I am also indebted to Lene Koch and Mie Seest Dam for their engagement with the text. I am grateful to the three anonymous reviewers for their close reading and comments. Lastly, I thank my research participants in the fields of animal research and precision medicine for valuable conversations and for their time and trust. All data was handled and kept according to the rules of the Danish Data Protection Agency. This work was supported by the Carlsberg Foundation (Semper Ardens grant CF17-0016).

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  1. Department of Public Health, Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies, University of Copenhagen, Øster Farimagsgade 5, 1014, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Mette N. Svendsen

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Svendsen, M.N. Pigs, people and politics: the (re)drawing of Denmark’s biological, politico-geographical, and genomic ‘borders’. BioSocieties 18, 714–732 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-021-00244-6

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