Chronicles of War Biology East of the Mediterranean

As the 20th anniversary of the Iraq war approaches, America seems to have moved on as the War on Terror becomes relegated to the past. I pose a question: how should we reckon with the afterlife of empire? As part of a book manuscript, in this talk, I build on close to two decades of ethnographic research on war injury and medical and public health practice in the Middle East to explore what I call “war biology”– how the wounding of war is registered in human and non-human life. The legacies of war linger, from the collapse and reconfiguration of healthcare infrastructures to the movement of refugees and patients across the region, to the rise of environmental toxicity and superbugs. Focusing on the uneasy nexus of militarism, environment, and the body, I propose “war biology” as a window into the aftermath of violence and the precarious futures of our planetary and global health.