From leprosy to ground zero

Imagining futures in a world of elimination

Dados Bibliográficos

ID2289294
AutoresJ Staples (0000-0002-2648-8636, Department of Social and Political Sciences Brunel University of London London UK, autor correspondente)
Ano2024
Data de publicação2024-12-17
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessSim
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoMedical Anthropology Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0745-5194 • E-ISSN: 1548-1387
EditoraWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/maq.12905
PMID39688940
OpenAlexW4405493586
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências citadas16

Achieving a target of zero-zero disease, zero disability, and zero discrimination-has become the dominant focus of campaigns to control or eliminate diseases, from HIV/AIDS to malaria to leprosy. Given the historical failure of most eradication programs over the last century, such teleological imaginings of disease-free futures might seem overly utopian. But even if it were possible to eradicate such diseases in their entirety, would this be universally welcomed, even by those most affected by them? In this article, I compare the narratives of national and international bodies concerned with eliminating leprosy, in particular, with the more ambivalent narratives of those affected by the disease in India, the country where the disease is most prevalent. For the latter, the promise of elimination not only seems unrealistic, but represents a potential loss of identity. Imagining disease trajectories in less linear terms, I argue, might also nuance understanding of them

Aesthetics · Ambivalence · Argument (complex analysis · Disease · Economics · Futures contract · Ground zero · Identity (music · Leprosy · Narrative · Pathology · Political science · Sociology · Teleology · Zero (linguistics · African cultural and philosophical studies · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Law · Leprosy Research and Treatment · Medicine · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology · Immunology