Place : Conference at the Collège de France (salle Claude Lévi-Strauss, 52 rue Cardinal Lemoine, 75005 Paris)
Organized by: Frédéric Keck (Musée du quai Branly) and Christos Lynteris (Cambridge University)
With the support of the Axa Research Fund
Date: 26-27 February 2015

English: Zoonoses raise a growing challenge to the life sciences as they force them to understand the mechanisms of transmission of pathogens that cross species barriers. The aim of this conference is to explore how anthropology may relate to this challenge. This will be addressed in two ways. Firstly, how might ethnography contribute to this field of research insofar as it involves long-time immersion in human-animal relationships? And secondly, how might anthropologists reflect on the public health response to infectious diseases transmitted by animals?

Français : Les zoonoses sont un défi croissant pour les sciences de la vie car elles obligent à comprendre les mécanismes de transmission des pathogènes qui franchissent les barrières des espèces. Le but de ce colloque est d’explorer la façon dont l’anthropologie peut se saisir de cet enjeu. D’abord, comment l’ethnographie peut-elle contribuer à ce champ de recherche à partir d’une immersion longue dans les relations entre humains et animaux ? Ensuite, comment les anthropologues peuvent-ils analyser les mesures de santé publique en réponse aux maladies infectieuses transmises par les animaux ?

 

Day 1

9:00-13:00
I. Infrastructural changes

Branwyn Poleykett-Nick Evans (Cambridge University) Building out the rat: ecology, race and infrastructure
Deborah Nadal (University of Verona) Rabies virus and slum children: a predictable encounter in New Delhi, India
Hannah Brown (Durham University) Care without contact: Material interruptions and infection control in Sierra Leone's Ebola outbreak

Discussant : Alex Nading (Edimburg University)

Lunch

14:30-18:40
II. Ontologies

Yancey Orr (Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale, Collège de France) The Importance of Taboo for the Perception of Zoonosis: Barks, Rabies and Religion in Bali
Sandrine Rulhman (Labex Structurations des mondes sociaux, Toulouse). Brucellosis, a widespread but invisible zoonosis kept in silence in Mongolia?
Natasha Fijin (Australian National University) Multi-species Medicine: the treatment of animal ailments in Mongolia

Discussant : Tamara Giles-Vernick (Institut Pasteur)

Day 2

9:00-13:00
III. Epistemologies

Christos Lynteris (Cambridge University) Zoonoses, anthropology and the challenge of epistemological entropy
Nicolas Lainé (Université Paris Ouest-Nanterre) Elephant tuberculosis in Laos : an emerging zoonosis between prevention, concerns and conservation.
Ann Kelly (Exeter University) Towards an Anthropology of Light and Zoonosis

Discussant : Nicolas Fortané (Institut National de Recherche Agronomique)

Lunch

14:30-18:30
IV. Moral and Political Categories

Francis Levesque (Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue) Inuit, dogs and Public Services: Sixty Years of Dog Control in Nunavik, Canada
Sarah Cabalion (Laboratoire d’anthropologie sociale, Collège de France) When men kiss camels: human-camel relationships and MERS-CoV in Doha (Qatar)
Natalie Porter (University of New Hampshire) Markets, Morals and the Articulation of Value in Vietnamese Bird Flu Interventions

Discussant : Lukas Engelman (Cambridge University)