Crisis futurities in pathogen-responder relations in Kenya: A genealogical approach
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.55016/pv3vc297Keywords:
crisis, futurity, infectious disease, intervention, sexually transmitted infections, scientists, KenyaAbstract
Constructing a genealogy of pathogen-responder relations, I reveal how pathogens register in complex ecosystems of human intervention. I illustrate how a grouping of pathogens orients the sensibilities of scientists toward calamity and dystopia through what I conceptualize as ‘crisis futurities’—doing so in ways that drive biopolitical impulses toward protecting life, mitigating human suffering, and experimentality. Crisis futurities spring from anticipatory temporalities scientists assign to pathogens: incubation and latency periods; speed and modality of spread; and causal risk factors. Intervention from this perspective is driven by an ethics of precision; a calculus of planning; and an experimental wrestling with ‘the hypothetical’ that anticipates the potential devastation and political consequences of pathogens.
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