COVID-19, biosecurity and anthropology

Abstract Suffering, anxieties and uncertainties are everywhere on the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been an impactful experience, however, increasingly common. Over the past few decades, different interests such as sanitary and climate emergencies, and food autonomy and terrorism, have crossed their paths with State actions for the surveillance and control of humans, animals, artifacts, and environments. This complex movement has launched some criticisms that raise contemporary concerns. They enact the emerging field of the anthropology of biosafety. The objective of this paper is to provide an introduction to these debates and their possibilities of intersection with those of health anthropology, science and technology, human-animal relations and environments and their criticisms based on local knowledge and practices.