Can you come up with empirical evidence to back up Jasbir Puar’s claims about debilitation as a state strategy?

ChatGPT said:

Empirical evidence for Jasbir Puar’s claims about debilitation as a state strategy would require an interdisciplinary approach, drawing from political science, human rights reports, disability studies, and military strategy. Below, I outline some potential sources and empirical evidence that could support or complicate her arguments.

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1. State-Sanctioned Injury and Debilitation in Occupied Territories

Puar claims that some states (especially Israel) do not seek outright extermination but instead maintain populations in a state of chronic injury or incapacity.

Empirical Evidence:

• Targeted Injuries in Palestine:

  • Reports from B’Tselem (Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories) document a high frequency of non-lethal but permanently disabling injuries caused by Israeli forces, including sniper shots to the knees of Palestinian protesters.

  • The 2018 UN Commission of Inquiry on the Gaza protests found that Israeli snipers intentionally shot journalists, medics, and children in ways that often led to permanent disability rather than death.

• Destruction of Infrastructure and Public Health Consequences:

  • World Health Organization (WHO) and Amnesty International reports have shown that repeated Israeli bombings of Palestinian healthcare infrastructure severely limit medical treatment options, contributing to long-term disability and preventable deaths.

  • Restrictions on movement due to military checkpoints prevent access to necessary medical care, contributing to chronic illness and higher mortality rates from treatable conditions.

• Use of “Skunk Water” and Tear Gas:

  • The Israeli military frequently uses Skunk Water (a chemical agent that causes nausea, burns, and long-lasting contamination) in Palestinian residential areas.

  • The heavy use of tear gas has been linked to increased rates of respiratory problems and miscarriages, according to the Palestinian Red Crescent Society and medical studies in the West Bank.

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2. The Political Economy of Disability and Debilitation

Puar extends her argument beyond Israel-Palestine, asserting that capitalist states create debilitation through economic and social structures rather than direct military force.

Empirical Evidence:

• Environmental Racism and Chronic Health Conditions:

  • Studies on Flint, Michigan’s water crisis demonstrate how racialized state neglect led to neurological damage, developmental disorders, and chronic illness in predominantly Black communities.

  • Reports from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) show that hazardous waste sites and industrial pollution disproportionately harm Indigenous and Black communities, leading to lifelong disabilities.

• Medical Neglect in U.S. Prisons:

  • The Prison Policy Initiative has documented how denial of healthcare in prisons results in chronic conditions worsening into permanent disabilities.

  • Reports from Human Rights Watch show how prolonged solitary confinement causes irreversible psychological and neurological damage.

• Economic Precarity and Workplace Injury:

  • Data from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) shows that the rise of precarious “gig economy” jobs has increased rates of workplace injury and disability.

  • Reports from the International Labour Organization (ILO) show that disabled and debilitated workers are disproportionately concentrated in low-wage, unstable work, reinforcing cycles of economic dependency.

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3. Biopolitical Control Through Non-Lethal Weaponry and Surveillance

Puar argues that modern states prefer non-lethal forms of population control, keeping people in a permanent state of incapacitation rather than elimination.

Empirical Evidence:

• U.S. Military and Crowd Control Tactics:

  • The U.S. military has increasingly invested in "non-lethal weapons" (such as rubber bullets, energy-directed weapons, and microwave crowd dispersal systems).

  • Reports from Amnesty International and the ACLU have documented that these weapons disproportionately cause blindness, amputations, and long-term cognitive damage in protestors and marginalized communities.

• Surveillance, Doxxing, and Psychological Debilitation:

  • Edward Snowden’s leaks on NSA surveillance demonstrated how the U.S. and other states use digital monitoring to track, intimidate, and psychologically exhaust activists.

  • Research on China’s social credit system suggests that state surveillance produces psychological stress and social debilitation by limiting people’s access to basic services if they fall out of state favor.

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Conclusion: How Strong Is the Empirical Case for Puar?

• There is substantial empirical evidence to support Puar’s general claims that states use structural violence, economic precarity, and military tactics to produce long-term debilitation in marginalized populations.

Here is additional empirical evidence that complements Jasbir Puar’s claims about debilitation as a state strategy, without repeating the specifics from your initial text:

1. Debilitation as a Border Regime Strategy

• Maiming Through Border Enforcement in Europe and the Americas: Studies on migration management highlight how states at geopolitical borders employ tactics that deliberately incapacitate migrants without causing death, such as forcing migrants to traverse dangerous terrains (deserts, mountains) or resorting to pushbacks, which frequently result in amputations, frostbite, and chronic injuries. For instance, investigative journalism and NGO reports document large numbers of migrants suffering severe physical harm due to violent expulsions and neglect at U.S.-Mexico and EU external borders, demonstrating a widespread practice of maintaining vulnerable populations in states of injury and dependency.

• Use of Non-lethal Techniques in Policing Protests Globally: Beyond Israel and the U.S., countries such as India, Brazil, and Turkey have employed non-lethal crowd control methods (stun grenades, batons with aim to maim rather than kill) that generate long-lasting disabilities. Human rights fieldwork has collected testimony from disabled activists who attribute their impairments directly to these state actions, making debilitation part of broader strategies of political repression.

2. Economic Structures and Disability Production in Neoliberal Contexts

• Impact of Deindustrialization on Work-Related Disability: Regions experiencing rapid industrial decline (e.g., the U.S. Rust Belt and parts of the UK) show an increase in chronic musculoskeletal and respiratory disabilities tied to unsafe workplace conditions, job insecurity, and high rates of occupational injury. Economic analyses link the erosion of workplace protections and decline of union power to the rise of permanent disabilities, embedding debilitation within neoliberal capital accumulation.

• Intersection of Urban Planning, Disability, and Marginalization: Urban sociological research reveals how infrastructure neglect in marginalized communities—such as lack of accessible public transit, poor housing conditions, and inadequate sanitation—disproportionately affects disabled bodies, creating disabling environments that enforce social exclusion and economic precarity. This demonstrates how spatial planning functions as a form of structural debilitation.

3. Surveillance and Psychological Debilitation Beyond the Digital Sphere

• Forced Displacement and Trauma in Indigenous Communities: Ethnographic research on land dispossession in settler colonial contexts (Canada, Australia) shows how displacement causes not only material injury but also intergenerational psychological trauma, producing debilitating stress and mental health crises that impair community vitality. These forms of debilitation are embedded in state policies that prioritize resource extraction over Indigenous wellbeing.

• Algorithmic Governance and Social Marginalization: Emerging studies in science and technology studies analyze how predictive policing algorithms and automated welfare sanctions systematically stigmatize and restrict resources to marginalized individuals, producing incapacitation through social invisibility, economic deprivation, and psychological stress—extending Puar’s argument about biopolitical debilitation into digital governance domains.

Summary

These examples bolster the claim that debilitation extends beyond direct physical violence. It is constitutive of border control strategies, the neoliberal political economy, and new regimes of surveillance and governance. The systematic production of chronic injury, psychological harm, and social dependency functions as a widespread state strategy to manage and control populations without resorting to physical elimination.