The Paradoxical Politics of Viral Containment; or, How Scale Undoes Us One and All

Cohen, Ed

doi:10.1215/01642472-1210247

Cited by 58 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 16 publications

(4 reference statements)

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“…. Moreover, why was the pig domesticated, and how does this porcine history contribute to its evolution as a ‘mixing vessel’?” (Cohen 2011, 29). Histories of agricultural production have been widely considered for how they create new possibilities for disease, whereas vaccine production notably has not.…”

Section: What Can't Be Askedmentioning

confidence: 99%

The WetNet: What the Oral Polio Vaccine Hypothesis Exposes about Globalized Interspecies Fluid Bonds

Jain

2020

Med Anthropol Q

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The author analyzes the aftermath of Edward Hooper's suggestion that the trial of an oral polio vaccine (OPV) in the Belgian colonies of Africa engendered the pandemic form of the AIDS virus, HIV-1. In response to Hooper's book, The River (1999), the Royal Society in London held a conference to debate the origins of HIV. Examination of the quick dismissal of the OPV theory opens a space for legitimately challenging the widely held belief that the vaccine contamination question was convincingly resolved. This article interrogates the relationship between historiography and the making of scientific facts and history, suggesting that historians have been too credulous of scientists' testimony. The further result of the lack of a thorough analysis of the evidence backing the OPV hypothesis has resulted in a missed opportunity to read The River as one of the few detailed accounts of the immense social, political, technological, and interspecies infrastructure constituted by Cold War vaccine production. This biomedical infrastructure dramatically changed the geographic and interspecies mobility of viruses in ways that may be impossible to reconstruct. Yet these potential transmission routes remain crucial to acknowledge. The COVID-19 pandemic draws attention to the critical importance of studying The WetNet, a concept coined by the author to name the conceptual and material infrastructures of inter-and intraspecies fluid bonding. [HIV origins, The WetNet, experimentality, Africa, zoonosis]

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Section: What Can't Be Askedmentioning

confidence: 99%

The WetNet: What the Oral Polio Vaccine Hypothesis Exposes about Globalized Interspecies Fluid Bonds

Jain

2020

Med Anthropol Q

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“…Epidemics, infection, and particularly viral pandemics, are heavily bio-politically invested crisis events, as many scholars have shown in relation to HIV/AIDS (Martin 2009;Mykhalovskiy and Rosengarten 2009), SARS (Cohen 2011;Erni 2008), and foot-andmouth disease (Law and Mol 2011). Epidemics, infection, and particularly viral pandemics, are heavily bio-politically invested crisis events, as many scholars have shown in relation to HIV/AIDS (Martin 2009;Mykhalovskiy and Rosengarten 2009), SARS (Cohen 2011;Erni 2008), and foot-andmouth disease (Law and Mol 2011).…”

Section: A Mackenziementioning

confidence: 99%

Multiplying numbers differently: an epidemiology of contagious convolution

Mackenzie

2014

Distinktion: Journal of Social Theory

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Contemporary data flows in science, business, government, and media draw numbers from two kinds of places. In some places, numbers are assembled and assigned through observing, counting, and measuring. In other places, numbers are assembled in a different way. Such places are usually defined mathematically as functions and implemented algorithmically in software. The numbers that come from them are not necessarily assigned to anything in the world as facts, keys, or codes. They are functional numbers. The time-space signature of calculation that results from the convolution of these two different supply chains of numbers has textures and traits that directly affect the unfolding of events. This paper reconstructs a symptomatic crisis event, the 2009 A/H1N1 'swine flu' influenza pandemic, from the standpoint of number flow in and around epidemiological models. In their sometimes drastic reshaping of lived space-times, epidemics generate and attract a plethora of numbers relating to human/non-human populations, human/non-human biology, vectors of infection, patterns of urban mobility, media use, clinical practice, and laboratory tests. Examining some key mathematical functions, data sets, plots, and computer model code, the paper reconstructs how these different kinds of numbers mix or 'convolve'. It suggests that the convolution of numbers to predict and control epidemics, or to disentangle different aspects of events more generally, might provoke us to think of how numbers multiply in multiple ways.The first distinguishing characteristic of thinking then is facing the factsinquiry, minute and extensive scrutinizing, observation. (Dewey 1957, 140)

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“…In addition to data collection regarding molecular protein structures, many crucial developments in infrastructure, gaming industry and player maturation, and popular culture were necessary to make Foldit's molecular point of view possible; in this way, the game is not solely a product of scientific expertise but more accurately an impure science. The conditions of possibility enabling the molecular retroactivism enabled by Foldit include increased prominence of gaming in daily life, especially the integration of game play as a form of social engagement, computer simulation and modelling using consumer electronics, and the diversification of narrative and visualization strategies within game production that have led to the rise of 'bio-games', or games that 'jump scale' and are centrally concerned not with bodies, but with how narratives of biological processes, at once didactic and pleasurable, are created (Cohen, 2011).…”

Section: You Are Not Alone: Collaborative Animations Of Molecular Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Playable Virus: HIV Molecular Aesthetics in Science and Popular Culture

Seiber

2014

Animation

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Viral aesthetics have become increasingly present in representations of health and illness. Since electron microscopy was first used to graphically isolate HIV, the 'viral look' has influenced academic and popular discussions about life and death. Commonly, the virus is associated with rapid and unseen transmission, hiding and genetic recoding that make identification and elimination difficult, and 'sleeper cell' behavior that delays detection and treatment. Visually isolating, eliminating and controlling molecular matter suggests that, in order to preserve life, foreign matter must be visually as well as biologically controlled. Recent attempts at imaging molecular space have shifted the practices of researchers. Using algorithms, models, and graphical interfaces, researchers now gain visual access to molecular space via simulation rather than photography, enrolling the public in the production of scientific research. Games such as Foldit use competitive play as a research method. Overcoming the problem of molecular scale using computer processing, and operationalizing the critique of 'expert knowledge' formulated by ACT UP in response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic, some successes have already been reported. This article demonstrates how scalar travels, the practices of visualization that disclose them, and the participatory possibilities of research remind us of the power of cultural practices in creating scientific knowledge.Although it had been attempted many times before, the puzzle was considered more intractable than impossible. Video game players, twisting a ribbon into complex and delicate shapes while avoiding overlaps and other problems represented by small, red, spiked orbs, worked toward a high

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The Paradoxical Politics of Viral Containment; or, How Scale Undoes Us One and All

Cited by 58 publications

References 16 publications

The WetNet: What the Oral Polio Vaccine Hypothesis Exposes about Globalized Interspecies Fluid Bonds

The WetNet: What the Oral Polio Vaccine Hypothesis Exposes about Globalized Interspecies Fluid Bonds

Multiplying numbers differently: an epidemiology of contagious convolution

Playable Virus: HIV Molecular Aesthetics in Science and Popular Culture

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