Bird flu biopower: Strategies for multispecies coexistence in Việt Nam
ABSTRACT Outbreaks of SARS, swine flu, and avian influenza have prompted a “One Health” effort to control diseases transmitted between species. Using ethnographic observations from Việt Nam, I reveal how avian flu transforms strategies for living in light of human vulnerability to animals. Positing...
| Published in: | American Ethnologist |
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| Main Author: | |
| Format: | Article in Journal/Newspaper |
| Language: | English |
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Wiley
2013
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| Online Access: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/amet.12010 https://api.wiley.com/onlinelibrary/tdm/v1/articles/10.1111%2Famet.12010 https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/amet.12010 |
| Summary: | ABSTRACT Outbreaks of SARS, swine flu, and avian influenza have prompted a “One Health” effort to control diseases transmitted between species. Using ethnographic observations from Việt Nam, I reveal how avian flu transforms strategies for living in light of human vulnerability to animals. Positing a multispecies approach to biopower, I argue that techniques for safeguarding human–animal collectivities confront heterogeneous moral codes surrounding animals’ role in knowledge hierarchies, village economies, and notions of individual worth. This analysis provides a framework for reconceptualizing biopower in relation to emerging diseases and reenvisions the role of animals in the politics of life itself. |
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