The ins and outs of biosecurity: bird 'flu in East Anglia and the spatial representation of risk

Avian influenza, or 'bird 'flu' arrived in Norfolk in April 2006 in the form of the low pathogenic strain H7N3. In February 2007 a highly pathogenic strain, H5N1, which can pose a risk to humans, was discovered in Suffolk. We examine how a local newspaper reported the outbreaks, focusing on the linguistic framing of biosecurity. Consistent with the growing concern with securitisation among policymakers, issues were discussed in terms of space (indoor–outdoor; local–global; national–international) and flows (movement, barriers and vectors) between spaces (farms, sheds and countries). The apportioning of blame along the lines of 'them and us'– Hungary and England – was tempered by the reporting on the Hungarian operations of the British poultry company. Explanations focused on indoor and outdoor farming and alleged breaches of biosecurity by the companies involved. As predicted by the idea of securitisation, risks were formulated as coming from outside the supposedly secure enclaves of poultry production.

Hygiene and biosecurity: the language and politics of risk in an era of emerging infectious diseases

Infectious diseases, such as methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and avian influenza, have recently been high on the agenda of policy makers and the public. Although hygiene and biosecurity are preferred options for disease management, policy makers have become increasingly aware of the critical role that communication assumes in protecting people during outbreaks and epidemics. This article makes the case for a language-based approach to understanding the public perception of disease. Health language research carried out by the authors, based on metaphor analysis and corpus linguistics, has shown that concepts of journeys, pathways, thresholds, boundaries and barriers have emerged as principal framing devices used by stakeholders to advocate a hygiene based risk and disease management. These framings provide a common ground for debate, but lead to quite different perceptions and practices. This in turn might be a barrier to global disease management in a modern world.

Health, hygiene and biosecurity: tribal knowledge claims in the UK poultry industry

Since 1997 the world has been facing the threat of a human influenza pandemic that may be caused by an avian virus and the poultry industry around the globe has been grappling with the highly pathogenic strain of avian influenza H5N1, or in more informal terms bird flu. The UK poultry industry has lived with and through this threat and its consequences since 2005. This study investigates knowledge claims about health, hygiene and biosecurity as tools to ward off the threat from this virus. It takes a semi-ethnographic and discourse analytic approach to analyse a small corpus of semi-structured interviews carried out in the wake of one of the most publicised outbreaks of H5N1 in Suffolk in 2007. It reveals that claims about what best to do to protect flocks against the risk of disease are divided along lines imposed on the one hand by the structure of the industry and on the other by more 'tribal' lines drawn by knowledge and belief systems about purity and dirt, health and hygiene.