Hearts of darkness and hot zones: The ideologeme of imperial contagion in recent accounts of viral outbreaks

Abstract

This study situates recent popularized accounts of emerging lethal viral strains within the context of a late nineteenth‐century rationale for imperialism‐i.e., the ideologeme of scenic contamination. Defining non‐European lands and peoples as “active” agents capable of “contaminating” the civilized natures of the imperialists who would seek to rule them, this ideologeme justified imperialism as a “defensive” measure designed to control and quarantine the unpredictable and chaotic forces of the underdeveloped world. A diachronic adaptation of this ideologeme forms the basis for texts detailing recent Third World viral outbreaks such as Richard Preston's The Hot Zone, a Video News International documentary entitled “Killer Virus,” and an episode of NOVA entitled “Plague Fighters.” While these texts do not advocate a return to an era of formal empire, all three present ideologically charged images of the Third World and its relationship to the West as objectively based scientific “fact.”