Podcasts from the SfAA

The first 25 minutes or so of this audio is lower in quality and volume than the rest due to microphone problems.

Ruth Finerman and Carolyn Sargent were the session chairs for this panel. This session was organized by the Society for Medical Anthropology.

Lenore Manderson (Monash U)

Containing Fear: Notes on an Economic History of Epidemics and Infection Manderson’s Paper
Within a year of the twin tower collapse, anthrax, SARS, mad cow disease and bird flu, were being reported and rumors of smallpox were spreading. Like HIV and earlier virulent infections, fear of bioterrorism was complicated by racist rhetoric to manufacture a climate of anxiety. In this presentation, I contrast and illustrate the consistencies of local and inter-government strategies of surveillance and control of infectious disease to sustain colonialism, commerce and industrialization in the 19th century, with the mechanisms of intelligence and containment today.

Elisha P. Renne (U Michigan)

The Politics of Polio
National vaccination programs against infectious childhood diseases have had variable success, depending on the state of health care infrastructure and on public perceptions of the relative risks of disease and immunization. In global eradication programs, which focus on stopping the transmission of a single infectious disease such as polio, international, national, and local organizations – with their own political perspectives – are involved. In Northern Nigeria, where wild poliovirus and, more recently, vaccine-derived poliovirus both exist, efforts to eradicate polio reflect the intersections of these different perspectives as well as the authority and power of those promoting or protesting this initiative.

Douglas A. Feldman (SUNY-Brockport)

Professor, Department of Anthropology,

The College at Brockport, State University of New York,

350 New Campus Drive, Brockport, NY 14626 USA;
(585) 395-5709; dfeldman (at) brockport (dot) edu

The Politics and Stigma of Global HIV/AIDS Feldman’s Paper
Many governments have, and continue to, minimize the prevalence of HIV/AIDS in their country in order to preserve their “national pride” while exacerbating the level of stigma in the population. People with HIV/AIDS are frequently stigmatized as “carriers” blamed for having the disease, and judged as immoral for who they are and what they do. Since the beginning of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, governments and organizations (whether democratic or repressive) have used – and continue to use – the disease to promote their political ideology (whether progressive or conservative).

Sandy Smith-Nonini (U NC-Chapel Hill)

The (Drug-resistant) Consumptives Are Coming!: Policing the Bacillus

At the height of public protests over immigration in 2006 anti-immigrant websites and pundits piled on with articles linking illegal immigrants to infectious disease. Claims about a surge in leprosy cases were quickly discredited.  But rightwing bloggers focusing on immigrants and drug-resistant tuberculosis presented a stronger case. Indeed, studies of resurgent TB epidemics in the United States in the late 1990s showed 39% of patients to be foreign-born. But does resurgent TB justify xenophobic national policy?  Our current national policy, which relies on screening at the border, suggests as much. But scholars who study tuberculosis have long seen the disease as a marker for failed public policy.  This paper will discuss non-racist perspectives on resurgent TB and immigrants to the United States.

Charles L. Briggs (UC-Berkeley)

Virtual Crises of Infectious Diseases: The Biocommunicable Production of a West Nile Virus “Threat”
Infectious diseases crises are now deeply mediated – most people “experience” epidemics through news coverage. This paper examines extensive efforts by San Diego public health officials to generate coverage of West Nile Virus during four years with four human cases and no deaths. It develops a framework of biocommunicability in discussing how different parties imagine the production, circulation, and reception of WNV knowledge and analyzes the mediatization of biomedicine – how institutional practices are transformed to continually create biomedical objects for insertion into media coverage. Neoliberal states can thus “speak” about health even as their role in providing healthcare erodes.

Mark Nichter (U Arizona)

Community Response to Avian Flu in Central Java, Indonesia
This presentation examines how different stakeholders respond to the threat of Avian Flu H5N1 in Central Java. After providing background on backyard and commercial poultry farming, I highlight competing views of which birds are responsible for and most susceptible to the disease. Reasons for widespread non-compliance to government avian flu protocols are examined. Also discussed are rumors circulating about whether the disease is new, who is responsible for it, and who is capitalizing off it. Considered are challenges faced by the Indonesian Government as it tries to promote community -based biopreparedness in the context of decentralized decision making
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