Pharmaceutical Border Crossings

Convenors: Sydney Calkin (Queen Mary, University of London) and Gavin Brown (University of Leicester
 
Sponsorship: (Applying for) Geographies of Health and Wellness Research Group
 
Format: 5 papers or 4 papers plus discussant
 
Abstract:
 
This panel on pharmaceutical geographies examines the cross border movement of pharmaceutical products, including substances used for medicinal and recreational purposes. We are especially interested in forms of pharmaceutical movement that are clandestine, informal, and networked. While this is most commonly associated with the 'buyers clubs' who moved experimental HIV/AIDS drugs in the 1980s, this topic includes a wide range of pharmaceutical products like Sofosbuvir for Hepatitis C, Mifepristone for abortion, PrEP to prevent HIV, Testosterone, and synthetic stimulants, among others. People move pharmaceutical products across borders because of various legal restrictions, licensing obstacles, price differences, or regulatory blocks. Papers in this panel will ask: How and why do these products move across borders? What kinds of infrastructures facilitate and obstruct their mobility? How do the relevant patient and consumer groups organize themselves to move products between countries, and to what degree of formality? How are these pharmaceutical circulations related to political campaigns and activism? We invite submissions that address these themes through any pharmaceutical product which moves across borders, preferably through informal and/ or clandestine networks. The focus of this paper foregrounds the movement of the pharmaceutical products themselves, rather than the cross-border travel of people who seek healthcare abroad. 
 
In addition to the questions posed above, papers might consider:
•	When and where does the border come into view in relation to cross-border movement of pharmaceuticals?
•	How do states respond to the cross-border movement of (clandestine) pharmaceuticals?
•	Are different pharmaceuticals treated differently by states and border agents when they cross borders? How? Why?
•	What kinds of economic relations facilitate the cross-border movement of (clandestine) pharmaceuticals?
•	What legal, political, social and economic restrictions motivate the (clandestine) cross-border trade in specific pharmaceuticals? What does this reveal about state practices and citizenship in given nations?
•	What subjectivities are produced in relation to the cross-border movement of pharmaceuticals?
•	What other geographical relations, at various scales, are (re)produced through these cross-boarder movements?
 
Please send and abstract (of approx. 250 words) and expressions of interest to Sydney Calkin ([log in to unmask]) and Gavin Brown ([log in to unmask]) by 31 January 2020.

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