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Zoonotic diagrams: mastering and unsettling human-animal relations

By Christos Lynteris

Category Journal Articles
Abstract

This article approaches interspecies relations through an examination of the prevalent visual device employed in the representation of animal-human infection in the life sciences: the zoonotic cycles diagram. After charting its emergence and development in the context of bubonic plague, I explore how this diagrammatic regime has been applied in two distinct practical contexts: a plague warning sign on the Grand Canyon National Park hiking trail; and the on-line public information campaign launched by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the wake of the Ebola outbreak of 2014-16. The article demonstrates the principal ontological and biopolitical operations of these diagrams, arguing that, far from simply summarizing epidemiological narratives of animal-human infection, they function both as pilots of human mastery over human-animal relations and as crucial sites of unsettlement for the latter.

Date 2017
Translated Title Diagrammes zoonotiques : maîtriser et perturber les relations entre humains et animaux
Publication Title Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute
Volume 23
Issue 3
Pages 463-485
ISBN/ISSN 13590987
Publisher Blackwell Publishing Ltd.
DOI 10.1111/1467-9655.12649
Language English
Author Address Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UK ; Department of Social Anthropology, University of St Andrews, St Andrews, Fife, UK
Additional Language English
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Tags
  1. Anthropology
  2. Biology
  3. Culture
  4. Diseases
  5. Epidemiology
  6. Health care
  7. Human-animal relationships
  8. Infections
  9. Information
  10. Internet
  11. open access
  12. plague
  13. prevention
  14. social anthropology
  15. Virus diseases
  16. Zoonoses
Badges
  1. open access