The Precariousness of the Non-Human Other: Situating Lyme Disease Within a Multispecies Framework

Abstract

Lyme disease, the fastest growing vector-borne infection, can be found at the convergence of human-animal-environmental health. The spread of the bacterium is accompanied by various factors, such as ecological changes brought about by human activity (i.e. climate change, hunting & deforestation), tick lifecycles, deer, mice, and bird populations, political designs, economic strategies, built environments, and toxic myths that turn practices of care into conditions for disease communicability. Lyme disease highlights how when multiple species are present, how they interact and relate with each other shapes their respective realities and changes the contours of interspecies encounters. Drawing on methods and scholarship from both critical medical anthropology and multispecies ethnography, this thesis seeks to understand the factors involved in people’s understanding of their companion animals, the environment, and disease transmission.