Photography, zoonosis and epistemic suspension after the end of epidemics
Abstract
Through the study of the photographic production accompanying the Chinese-Russian plague expedition to South Siberia and Mongolia in the summer of 1911, this chapter examines the way in which photography after the end of epidemics is implicated in processes of epistemic uncertainty and doubt. The chapter examines photographs contained in two unpublished albums compiled by China’s founding epidemiologist, Wu Liande. Arguing that these both portray and foster uncertainty and doubt over Wu’s hitherto proclaimed thesis that Siberian marmots were the origin of the devastating plague epidemic in Manchuria between October 1910 and April 1911, the chapter considers the role of visual representations in epidemiological reasoning in periods following the end of epidemic outbreaks, often experienced as inter-epidemic intervals.
Citation
Lynteris , C 2019 , Photography, zoonosis and epistemic suspension after the end of epidemics . in A H Kelly , F Keck & C Lynteris (eds) , The anthropology of epidemics . Routledge studies in health and medical anthropology , Routledge Taylor & Francis Group , Abingdon, Oxon , pp. 84-101 . https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429461897-6
Publication
The anthropology of epidemics
Status
Peer reviewed
Type
Book item
Description
Funding: Research leading to this chapter was funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP/2007–13)/ ERC Grant Agreement no. 336564 for the project ‘Visual Representations of the Third Plague Pandemic’ at the University of Cambridge and the University of St Andrews.Collections
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