Phantom Sovereignty: Medical Imperialism and the Geopolitics Behind Prosthetics

Despite the staggering number of amputations caused by modern warfare, the intersection of disability, biopolitics, and international relations remains largely under researched. My thesis fills this gap by intertwining the varying studies and investigating the geopolitics of prosthetic care in post-conflict and ongoing crisis zones, arguing that the common influx of the international humanitarian aid apparatus (IHAA) frequently creates a state of managed dependency for a state and the amputee, rather than the facilitation of rehabilitation. This thesis introduces a theoretical framework that I title "phantom sovereignty" a condition where the host state retains the legal structure of sovereignty but is functionally stripped of the material and technical capacity to care for its amputee population. Operating through a decentralized form of medical imperialism, this system maintains that the "right to repair" the human body can be monopolized by foreign agencies and global supply chains, converting the neutrality of the prosthetic limb as a medical device into a weaponized political tool of imperial governance. Using a qualitative, illustrative case study methodology, my research traces three distinct mechanisms used to make up the framework of phantom sovereignty: substitution, fragmentation, and debilitation. By examining the cases of Sierra Leone, Cambodia, and Gaza my thesis demonstrates how foreign intervention and humanitarian aid replaces local healthcare infrastructures, imposes incompatible technologies, and weaponizes blockades, forcing the amputee population's biological survival into a managed dependency on the Global North.