ABSTRACT
This work intends to contribute to the reflection on the human body position in the development of the nation-state between the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries with the metaphor of blood as the heuristic and referential analysis key. This period was chosen because of its political, economic and social importance for the Modern States. In these, biopolitical and biopower devices, engendered by the paradigm of immunization and through hygienist and eugenic theories mixed with the language of germs and genes, contributed to the notion of national boundary crossing the territorial limit. In this understanding, the nation state, viewed through the metaphor of blood, can help the understanding of biopolitical-immune devices in their identity construction. Such devices, acting on the human bodies, were integrated into the nationalist agenda of some former colonies from their geographical dimension to the realm of private life. In this context, the biomedical, scientific, political and moral discourses were confused, supporting a set of behaviors, beliefs and knowledge about the human body and territory that cooperated with their nationalist projects. Finally, the aim of this paper was to illustrate, through the blood metaphor, that the polysemy of the term ‘blood’ in the dominant discourse of the late nineteenth and early twentieth century immunization paradigm consolidated the debates on citizenship, naturalization, and inclusion in countries such as Australia, the United States, and Brazil.
KEYWORDS
Bioethics themes; Human body; Territoriality; Public health