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. 2014 Jun;28(2):280-303.
doi: 10.1111/maq.12092. Epub 2014 Apr 21.

Material proximities and hotspots: toward an anthropology of viral hemorrhagic fevers

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Free PMC article

Material proximities and hotspots: toward an anthropology of viral hemorrhagic fevers

Hannah Brown et al. Med Anthropol Q. 2014 Jun.
Free PMC article

Abstract

This article outlines a research program for an anthropology of viral hemorrhagic fevers (collectively known as VHFs). It begins by reviewing the social science literature on Ebola, Marburg, and Lassa fevers and charting areas for future ethnographic attention. We theoretically elaborate the hotspot as a way of integrating analysis of the two routes of VHF infection: from animal reservoirs to humans and between humans. Drawing together recent anthropological investigations of human-animal entanglements with an ethnographic interest in the social production of space, we seek to enrich conceptualizations of viral movement by elaborating the circumstances through which viruses, humans, objects, and animals come into contact. We suggest that attention to the material proximities-between animals, humans, and objects-that constitute the hotspot opens a frontier site for critical and methodological development in medical anthropology and for future collaborations in VHF management and control.

Keywords: animal studies; hotspot; material proximities; space; viral hemorrhagic fevers.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Images from a visual aid used in a public health campaign in DRC compare dangerous with protected caregiving of a patient with Ebola (LNSP/MSASF and France Cooperation N. d.).
Figure 2
Figure 2
A flow chart tracing the chains of contact leading up to the "index transmission event’" (Leroy et al. :727).
Figure 3
Figure 3
A diagram of the layout of the Marburg ward and isolation area near the end of the Marburg hemorrhagic fever epidemic, Uige, Angola, 2005 (Jeffs et al. :196 Suppl. 2), indicating the highly spatialized nature of protection during an outbreak. Arrows indicate the movement of health personnel, patients, and corpses.

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