Picturing Zika

This project proposed one year of research focused on the visual representations and narratives of the Zika virus, asking, what is the relationship between digital media forms and the urban climate politics of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil during a public health crisis? Media included images, videos, popular journalism texts and academic scholarship, while political actions included governmental programs, municipal policies, and activism. In Phase I September-March the PI and students used the tools of visual and media anthropology to generate a nuanced public archive with diverse media data of the evolution of the narrative of the Zika virus as a global health crisis. In Phase II, the PI undertook fieldwork toward analysis of the iterative relationships between these media forms and actual praxis. The objective was to produce and make available knowledge about the mobile intersection of internet media and urban climate politics concerning the emergence of the Zika virus in Brazil. Findings were aimed at both anthropologists (in particular visual and media anthropologists) and those with topical interest in cities, water management, climate change, and infectious disease.

The Zika virus emerged at the intersection of some of the most vital and contentious issues in the world today, including urbanization, management of water resources, climate change, and global vulnerability to infectious disease. In general, the work and knowledge produced within each of these domains is "first order." That is, practitioners engage in direct observations of and operations on their aspect of the problem, and their work is fundamentally formed by the parameters of their discipline and profession, e.g. biomedicine, public health, city planning, and journalism. This project engages in what Niklas Luhmann called "second order observation" (2002: 95), that is, observation of those producing first order knowledge, toward better understanding how their knowledge is produced and applied, and, crucially, the relation between the two. The key element shaping knowledge production that we are focused on is the role of media narratives and images. 

The appearance in Brazil of the Zika virus became associated with the iconic photo of the “bucket baby” with microcephaly captured by an AP photographer in December 2015. The story of the baby, the photo and a virus so far from its Ugandan forest of origin can be taken up as one of globalization or international health, precarious urban infrastructures or climate change. In actuality, events tend to be narrated through shifting combinations of all of these. Yet there is very little research on how narratives and images of a public health event emerge, or the role played by visual representations and figurations in scientific research, political action (and inaction), or the lived experience of those involved, from affected families to scientists to journalists.

The first year of research captured the crucial time period of the virus’ emergence as a “public health emergency of international concern,” documenting and analyzing how scientific knowledge production, political debates, personal experiences, and journalistic narratives converge. For a write-up of results, see The Invention of Infodemics: On the Outbreak of Zika and Rumors.

Knowledge Mobilization

Publications

2018    Stalcup M, Review of Debora Diniz’s Zika: From the Brazilian Backlands to Global Threat. Trans. Diana Grosklaus Whitty. (2017) Medicine Anthropology Theory, 5(4), 132-135.

Conferences and Workshops

2017 Viral Conspiracies: Rumor and Emerging Infectious Diseases in Brazil’s Media Ecology, panel “The politics of ‘facts’ and science in an age of ‘post-truth.’ Boston, MA, Annual Meeting of the Society for Social Studies of Science (4S), 31 August.

2017 Suspicion: On the Outbreak of the Zika Virus and Rumor, panel “On the Question of Evidence: Movement, Stagnation, and Spectacle in Brazil,” Ottawa, ON, Joint International Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences (IUAES) and Canadian Anthropology Society (CASCA) Conference/Interconference, 6 May. 

2017 Images of Absence: On Figures and Figuration of the Disappeared in Brazil, panel “Peace Out! Reclaiming Sovereignty’s Bodies and Borders” Palo Alto, CA American Ethnological Society, 1 April.

2016 The Bucket Baby: Figurations of Crisis and Corruption in Brazil, panel “Small Things,” Minneapolis, MN, Annual Meeting of the American Anthropology Association, 19 November.