Document Type
Journal Article
Date of this Version
2004
Publication Source
OSIRIS
Volume
19
Start Page
250
Last Page
265
Abstract
In the transition out of socialism to market capitalism, bodies, populations, and categories of citizenship have been reordered. The rational-technical management of groups affected by the Chernobyl disaster in Ukraine is a window into this contested process. Chernobyl exemplifies a moment when scientific knowability collapsed and new maps and categories of entitlement emerged. Older models of welfare rely on precise definitions situating citizens and their attributes on a cross-mesh of known categories upon which claims rights are based. Here one observes how ambiguities related to categorizing suffering created a political field in which a state, forms of citizenship, and informal economies were remade.
Recommended Citation
Petryna, A. (2004). Biological Citizenship: The Science and Politics of Chernobyl-Exposed Populations. OSIRIS, 19 250-265. Retrieved from https://repository.upenn.edu/anthro_papers/21
Date Posted: 09 July 2014
This document has been peer reviewed.
Comments
Stable url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3655243