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Urban mosquitoes, situational publics, and the pursuit of interspecies separation in Dar es Salaam
Author(s) -
KELLY ANN H.,
LEZAUN JAVIER
Publication year - 2014
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.12081
Subject(s) - public health , dar es salaam , tanzania , context (archaeology) , public health interventions , situational ethics , politics , ethnography , sociology , publics , work (physics) , psychological intervention , anopheles , malaria , political science , geography , socioeconomics , anthropology , biology , population , law , archaeology , psychology , psychiatry , engineering , immunology , medicine , mechanical engineering , demography , nursing
Recent work in anthropology points to the recognition of multispecies entanglements as the grounds for a more ethical politics. In this article, we examine efforts to control mosquitoes in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, as an example of the laborious tasks of disentanglement that characterize public health interventions. The mosquito surveillance and larval elimination practices of an urban malaria control program offer an opportunity to observe how efforts to create distance between species relate to the physical and civic textures of the city. Seen in the particular context of the contemporary African metropolis, the work of public health appears less a matter of control than a commitment to constant urban maintenance and political mobilization. [ multispecies ethnography, public health, malaria, Dar es Salaam, cities ]