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Bird flu biopower: Strategies for multispecies coexistence in Việt Nam
Author(s) -
PORTER NATALIE
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
american ethnologist
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.875
H-Index - 78
eISSN - 1548-1425
pISSN - 0094-0496
DOI - 10.1111/amet.12010
Subject(s) - biopower , safeguarding , environmental ethics , vulnerability (computing) , relation (database) , sociology , ethnography , politics , influenza a virus subtype h5n1 , biology , political science , anthropology , virology , law , philosophy , medicine , virus , nursing , computer security , database , computer science
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.