A Historical Sociology of Teargas in Britain and the Empire, 1925-1965
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A Historical Sociology of Teargas in Britain and the Empire, 1925-1965 Alexander Chanan Mankoo Thesis submitted for the Doctor of Philosophy Department of Science and Technology Studies UCL 2019 1 Declaration I, Alexander Chanan Mankoo, confirm that the work presented in this thesis is my own. Where information has been derived from other sources, I confirm that this has been indicated in the thesis. 2 Abstract Teargas has followed a markedly different trajectory to its chemical weapons (CW) counterparts over the twentieth century. While the Geneva Protocol of 1925 and the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention prohibited chemical agents as means of warfare, from the early interwar period teargas gained legitimacy as a technology for domestic policing across the world. Moreover, this role in domestic riot control later became a means for some states to justify its use in military operations. This PhD therefore asks: how did teargas, in the case of British policy, become associated with riot control and policing in the twentieth century, yet prohibited as a means of warfare? Drawing from key concepts in STS and related social sciences, I argue that we can take the technical characteristics of ‘teargas’ (its ‘non-lethality’ or low toxicity) as being co-produced with its social role as a crowd control agent. Furthermore, I argue that by doing so we gain insight into how the ‘non-lethal’ status of teargas was situated within a ‘civilising’ governmentality in Britain. This governmentality both legitimated, and was legitimated by, the authority of scientific expertise. The thesis makes this argument by tracing a historical sociology of teargas in Britain and the empire from 1925 to 1965. Using declassified records from the UK National Archives and sources from newspaper archives, it examines three significant moments in Britain’s construction of teargas as a domestic technology. The first addresses the initial transition from military to colonial policing contexts that teargas made in British policy during the interwar period; the second focuses on Britain’s first use of teargas on populations within the UK during civil defence gas tests during WWII; the third traces the widespread use of teargas throughout the empire from WWII until 1965, examining the emergence of CS gas with the conception of riot control later in this period. Ultimately, I contend that CS, the ‘teargas’ of our contemporary moment, emerged from a sociotechnical imaginary of non-lethal chemical control grounded in ‘civilising’ modes of techno-politics. 3 Impact Statement In grappling with the history of teargas in Britain, this PhD offers insights that can have impact in three main areas. Firstly, it has implications for policy pertaining to arms control at the international level and use of force at the domestic level, especially regarding the democratic governance of teargas technologies. By demonstrating how assumptions about who gas should be used on and why were embedded within definitions of harm, lethality, and toxicity, the analysis here serves as a caution for policy makers, practitioners, and activists to consider what is taken for granted in the governance of both teargas and emergent arms technologies today – particularly those that purportedly straddle the boundary between military and civilian application.1 Secondly, it makes novel contributions to the historical literature on teargas, chemical weapons, and British defence in general. For example, it involves the first in-depth examination of Britain’s WWII civil defence gas tests, which involved the use of teargas on British publics across the nation; it sheds light on the intricate ties between Britain’s development of teargas and its imperial control of colonial populations; and it includes a detailed study of the experiments at Porton Down that led Britain to identify and adopt CS as a ‘riot control agent’. The project fills these historical gaps, puts related historical work (on WWII civic life, for instance) in a new light, and encourages further research on events revealed here from other disciplinary perspectives. Moreover, there is scope to develop a publicly orientated online tool with which people around the UK search an interactive map that shows whether, when, and where teargas tests took place in their local areas. Thirdly, the project furthers work in STS that builds on Sheila Jasanoff’s notions of ‘co-production’ and ‘civic epistemology’, showing how these approaches are valuable ways with which to understand the social and political aspects of the emergence of teargas in the twentieth century. In doing so, it also highlights how relations between conceptions of experimentation, care, and control interact to provide legitimacy to particular technologies, futures, and ways of governing. Furthermore, I offer the concept of ‘orders of subjectivity’ as a means to examine how different actors in systems of sociotechnical governance perform a combination of both structured (contingent) and agential (emergent) roles in these 1 I have already spoken at events on security with key representatives of government and civil society 4 assemblages. There is thus scope for future work that builds on this concept to examine how different configurations of these orders emerge across social and cultural contexts. The project has already generated a number of outputs – including an edited volume on chemical weapons2 and my co-organising an international conference.3 There is certainly scope for the work to produce further scholarly publications, and precipitate a workshop on the topic involving policy makers, arms control professionals, and scholars. Finally, it also provides a wealth of material that could be used in compiling an undergraduate taught course on science, technology, and security – a topic often lacking from current STS or history of science syllabi. 2 Alex Mankoo and Brian Rappert (eds.), Chemical Bodies: The Techno-Politics of Control (London, New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2018). 3 The conference was titled “Science/Technology Security: Challenges to Global Governance?” and took place at UCL’s Global Governance Institute on 20/21 June 2016. 5 Acknowledgements I would first like to thank my supervisor Brian Balmer for his intellectual, mental and emotional support throughout my PhD and academic life in general. He has continually given me a constructively critical eye, confidence and encouragement, and drawn me into the community of chemical and biological weapons control scholars. I appreciate him both as a scholar and a kind human being. I thank Jon Agar for his advice and support as my secondary supervisor, and I thank my extended academic family in the UCL Science and Technology Studies Department for the guidance and conversations over the years: including Chiara Ambrosio, Joe Cain, Brendan Clarke, Emily Dawson, Jean Baptiste-Gouyon, Simon Lock, Tiago Mata (and for being my internal examiner), Melanie Smallman, Erman Sozudogru, Alex Spelling, and Jack Stilgoe. I thank Lori Coletti Campbell, Malcolm Chalmers, and Susan Walsh for their resourcefulness and kindness in helping with all manner of organisational and administrative undertakings. I am indebted to my fellow PhD students (past and current) in the department for years of friendship, laughter, commiseration, motivation, and inspiration – including Katherine Cecil, Sadie Harrison, Liz Jones, Oliver Marsh, Sara Peres, Sam Vanderslott, Raquel Velho, and Jacob Ward. I was incredibly fortunate to undertake a 2018 Spring Fellowship in the Science, Technology and Society Program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government as part of my PhD. I am deeply grateful to Program Director Sheila Jasanoff for her invaluable insights into my research, the exciting community she has cultivated at the Kennedy School, and for her hospitality during my time Cambridge, MA. Thanks to Shana Ashar for her organisational work and making me feel welcome in the program, and my wonderful colleagues there for the many thought provoking conversations, fun trips, and friendships. I would also like to thank Jeanne Guillemin and Matthew Meselson, who welcomed my wife Dianna and I with a wonderful dinner during our time in Boston, and have been a great source of insight. During the middle of my PhD, I also worked in the Understanding Patient Data team at the Wellcome Trust on a three-month internship, and extend my thanks to my colleagues there as well. I thank Jason Dittmer in UCL’s Geography Department for a fantastic time co- organising the Science/Security/Technology conference, and for giving me the opportunity to compile an edited volume during my PhD. I thank Brian Rappert for co-editing that volume 6 with me; I was privileged to work alongside his dependable support, critical eye, and experience in the field. I am grateful to the authors (many of whom I now call friends) who contributed to that project. Special thanks go to Anna Feigenbaum, a brilliant fellow researcher of all things ‘teargas’ who I have enjoyed fascinating conversations with throughout my PhD. Regarding others within the community of CBW scholarship, I am indebted to the staff of the Harvard-Sussex Program on Chemical and Biological Weapons – especially Julian Perry Robinson, Caitríona McLeish, and James Revill for their expertise, support of, and interest in my work over the years. I thank Brett Edwards for being an insightful, thorough and enthusiastic external examiner. Thanks to John Walker at the FCO, the staff at The National Archives – particularly Stephen Twigge – and the staff at the East Sussex Records Office and Kingston History Archive for their assistance with my work. I thank the Economic and Social Research Council for funding my PhD, without which this work would not have been possible, and the Research and Development Management Association for additional funding. Finally, I wish to express a deep gratitude to my family – my parents, brothers, and sisters – who have never stopped supporting me in my PhD over the last few years, and to my close friends who spurred me on. Most importantly, I am indebted to Dianna – for marrying me during my PhD, for always having faith in me (even when I don’t), and for delighting in my work almost as much I do.