Picturing Zika

The appearance in Brazil of the Zika virus (first isolated in Uganda in 1947), is already 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 African 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 Zika virus, we propose, emerges 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. 

In Phase I, the PI and student researchers will document the forms and practices of visual and textual communication in popular journalism on the Zika virus, academic scholarship, and social media, paying careful to attention what then happens in the world. In Phase II, the PI will complement this documentation with ethnographic fieldwork at significant sites in greater Rio de Janeiro: the marginalized and neglected precarious urban environment called the Baixada Fluminense within which the Institute Oswaldo Cruz (FioCruz, the preeminent public health research institute in Brazil), ironically, is located; and the media ecology of the city itself. Rio de Janeiro is where Brazil’s most powerful media conglomerates are headquartered, and where its journalists, editors and managers live, and also where many alternative journalism groups emerged during and in the wake of major 2013 protests.

This first year of research will capture 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. This is envisioned as the first phase of a three-year project on urban climate politics (subsequent REB applications will be submitted), rather than a preliminary study. However, both the construction of the case itself and the methods used will explicitly analyzed and adapted for continued use in the second phase and in subsequent years.

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.