Bird flu biopower: Strategies for multispecies coexistence in Việt Nam

• Published in: American Ethnologist
• Main Author: PORTER, NATALIE
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Wiley 2013
• Subjects: Avian flu
• 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

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.