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Becoming WithoutMaking Transgenic Mosquitoes and Disease Control in Brazil

Becoming WithoutMaking Transgenic Mosquitoes and Disease Control in Brazil The Aedes aegypti mosquito, known as the vector for Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever viruses, has historically been targeted by public health campaigns as an enemy to be eliminated. However, new strategies, such as the transgenic approach, biologically modify the A. aegypti so that they can be deployed to control their own population—here, mosquito breeding and mating is operationalized as an insecticide. In this case, the insect must be simultaneously a friend and an enemy, cared for and killed, and it must establish encounters and nonencounters. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at a “biofactory” in the northeast of Brazil dedicated to mass-producing these transgenic mosquitoes, this article investigates the new forms of labor and value produced through these contrasting human-mosquito relations. The author also examines how the project is implemented within broader geopolitics of experimentation and more-than-human gendered conceptions. Analyzing the multispecies relationships engendered under the premise that it is possible to produce nonencounters, she identifies the historical conditions and promissory claims of transforming the A. aegypti ’s reproductive capacity into labor for killing. Such recasting yields what the author calls the “nonencounter value” within the scientific remaking of mosquitoes, their becoming and being. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Environmental Humanities Duke University Press

Becoming WithoutMaking Transgenic Mosquitoes and Disease Control in Brazil

Reis-Castro, Luísa
Environmental Humanities , Volume 13 (2) – Nov 1, 2021
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25 pages

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Copyright
© 2021 Luísa Reis-Castro
ISSN
2201-1919
eISSN
2201-1919
DOI
10.1215/22011919-9320178
Publisher site
See Article on Publisher Site

Abstract

The Aedes aegypti mosquito, known as the vector for Zika, dengue, chikungunya, and yellow fever viruses, has historically been targeted by public health campaigns as an enemy to be eliminated. However, new strategies, such as the transgenic approach, biologically modify the A. aegypti so that they can be deployed to control their own population—here, mosquito breeding and mating is operationalized as an insecticide. In this case, the insect must be simultaneously a friend and an enemy, cared for and killed, and it must establish encounters and nonencounters. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork at a “biofactory” in the northeast of Brazil dedicated to mass-producing these transgenic mosquitoes, this article investigates the new forms of labor and value produced through these contrasting human-mosquito relations. The author also examines how the project is implemented within broader geopolitics of experimentation and more-than-human gendered conceptions. Analyzing the multispecies relationships engendered under the premise that it is possible to produce nonencounters, she identifies the historical conditions and promissory claims of transforming the A. aegypti ’s reproductive capacity into labor for killing. Such recasting yields what the author calls the “nonencounter value” within the scientific remaking of mosquitoes, their becoming and being.

Journal

Environmental Humanities – Duke University Press

Published: Nov 1, 2021

References

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    Adler, Jerry
  • Reproduction
    Almeling, Rene
  • Aegypti: Ideología de género, feminismo y extinción
    Amarillo, Claudia Rivera
  • Lively Commodities and Encounter Value
    Barua, Maan
  • Jumping Hurdles with Mosquitoes?
    Beisel, Uli
  • Markets and Mutations: Mosquito Nets and the Politics of Disentanglement in Global Health
    Beisel, Uli
  • The Flying Public Health Tool: Genetically Modified Mosquitoes and Malaria Control
    Beisel, Uli Boëte, and Christophe
  • Reinventing Mosquito Control: Experimental Trials and Nonscalable Relations in the Florida Keys
    Bennett, Priscilla Bardosh, Kevin
  • Herding Species: Biosecurity, Posthuman Labor, and the American Industrial Pig
    Blanchette, Alex
  • Insects, Colonies, and Idealization in the Early Americas
    Brown, Eric C.
  • Responsible Innovation and Political Accountability: Genetically Modified Mosquitoes in Brazil
    Campos, André Hartley, Sarah Koning, Christiaan de Lezaun, Javier Velho, Lea
  • I Fell in Love with Carlos the Meerkat: Engagement and Detachment in Human-Animal Relations
    Candea, Matei
  • Suppression of a Field Population of Aedes aegypti in Brazil by Sustained Release of Transgenic Male Mosquitoes
    Carvalho, Danilo McKemey, Andrew Garziera, Luiza Lacroix, Renaud Donnelly, Christl Alphey, Luke Malavasi, Aldo Capurro, Margareth
  • Mass Production of Genetically Modified Aedes aegypti for Field Releases in Brazil
    Carvalho, Danilo Nimmo, Derric Naish, Neil McKemey, Andrew Gray, Pam Wilke, André Marrelli, Mauro Virginio, Jair Alphey, Luke Capurro, Margareth
  • Precariedades oportunas, terapias insulares: Economias políticas da doença e da saúde na experimentação farmacêutica
    Castro, Rosana.
  • The Cycles of Eradication: The Rockefeller Foundation and Latin American Public Health (1918–1940)
    Cueto, Marcos Weindling, Paul
  • The Mosquito Struggle: Other-than-Vector Ecologies in a ‘Zika-Free’ Brazilian Sertão
    da Silva Maia, Túllio Dias
  • The Body We Care for: Figures of Anthropo-Zoo-Genesis
    Despret, Vinciane
  • Seção 1—Página 16, No 128, Quarta-Feira, 4 de Julho
  • Zika Virus Outbreak on Yap Island, Federated States of Micronesia
    Duffy, Mark R. Chen, Tai-Ho Hancock, W. Thane Powers, Ann M. Kool, Jacob L. Lanciotti, Robert S. Pretrick, Moses, et al
  • Transformer pour controlêr: Humains et moustiques à la réunion, à l’ère de la biosécurité
    Dupé, Sandrine
  • The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
    Engels, Friedrich Tucker, Robert C.
  • Ethnographies of Encounter
    Faier, Lieba Rofel, Lisa
  • A World without Mosquitoes
    Fang, Janet
  • Natural Vertical Transmission of Dengue Virus in Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus: A Systematic Review
    Ferreira-De-Lima, Victor Henrique Lima-Camara, Tamara
  • Reinfestação do Brasil pelo Aedes aegypti: Considerações sôbre o risco de urbanização do vírus da febre amarela silvestre na região infestada
    Fraiha, Habib
  • Effect of Interruption of Over-Flooding Releases of Transgenic Mosquitoes over Wild Population of Aedes aegypti: Two Case Studies in Brazil
    Garziera, Luiza Pedrosa, Michelle Souza, Fabrício Gómez, Maylen Moreira, Márcia Virginio, Jair Capurro, Margareth Carvalho, Danilo
  • Oxitec’s Genetically Modified Mosquitoes: Ongoing Concerns
  • Sticky Lives: Slugs, Detachment, and More-than-Human Ethics in the Garden
    Ginn, Franklin
  • Living with Awkward Creatures: Vulnerability, Togetherness, Killing
    Ginn, Franklin Beisel, Uli Barua, Maan
  • Bodies That Count: Administering Multispecies in Palestine/Israel’s Borderlands
    Gutkowski, Natalia
  • Value-Added Dogs and Lively Capital
    Haraway, Donna
  • Field Performance of Engineered Male Mosquitoes
    Harris, Angela Nimmo, Derric McKemey, Andrew Kelly, Nick Scaife, Sarah Donnelly, Christl Beech, Camilla Petrie, William Alphey, Luke
  • Engendered Structures: Some Problems in the Analysis of Reproduction
    Harris, Olivia Young, Kate Kahn, Joel Llobera, Joseph
  • Species of Biocapital
    Helmreich, Stefan
  • Urban Mosquitoes, Situational Publics, and the Pursuit of Interspecies Separation in Dar es Salaam
    Kelly, Ann H. Lezaun, Javier
  • The Wild Indoors: Room-Spaces of Scientific Inquiry
    Kelly, Ann H. Lezaun, Javier
  • The CRISPR Hack: Better, Faster, Stronger
    Kirksey, Eben
  • The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography
    Kirksey, Eben Helmreich, Stefan
  • Open Field Release of Genetically Engineered Sterile Male Aedes Aegypti in Malaysia
    Lacroix, Renaud McKemey, Andrew R. Raduan, Norzahira Lim Kwee, Wee Wong, Hong Ming Teoh Guat, Ney Siti, Rahidah A. A., et al
  • Being Alongside: Rethinking Relations amongst Different Kinds
    Latimer, Joanna
  • A Vector in the (Re)Making: A History of Aedes aegypti as Mosquitoes That Transmit Diseases in Brazil
    Lopes, Gabriel Reis-Castro, Luísa Lynteris, Christos
  • Leaking Containers: Success and Failure in Controlling the Mosquito Aedes aegypti in Brazil
    Löwy, Ilana
  • ‘O que adianta conhecer muita gente e no fim das contas estar sempre só?’ O desafio da maternidade em tempos de síndrome congênita do Zika vírus
    Lustosa Alves, Raquel Fleischer, Soraya
  • Economic Impact of Dengue: Multicenter Study across Four Brazilian Regions
    Martelli, Celina Maria Turchi Jr, Joao Bosco Siqueira. Parente, Mirian Perpetua Palha Dias Zara, Ana Laura de Sene Amancio Oliveira, Consuelo Silva Braga, Cynthia SiqueiraJoao Bosco Jr., et al
  • Fitness of Transgenic Mosquito Aedes aegypti Males Carrying a Dominant Lethal Genetic System
    Massonnet-Bruneel, Blandine Corre-Catelin, Nicole Lacroix, Renaud Lees, Rosemary Hoang, Kim Phuc Nimmo, Derric Alphey, Luke Reiter, Paul
  • Evolution of Mosquito Preference for Humans Linked to an Odorant Receptor
    McBride, Carolyn Baier, Felix Omondi, Aman Spitzer, Sarabeth Lutomiah, Joel Sang, Rosemary Ignell, Rickard Vosshall, Leslie
  • Intimacy without Proximity: Encountering Grizzlies as a Companion Species
    Metcalf, Jacob
  • Situação epidemiológica/dados
  • Programa nacional de controle da dengue
  • Initial Description of the Presumed Congenital Zika Syndrome
    Miranda-Filho, Demócrito de Barros Martelli, Celina Maria Turchi Ximenes, Ricardo Arraes de Alencar Araújo, Thalis Velho Barreto Rocha, Maria Angela Wanderley Ramos, Regina Coeli Ferreira Dhalia, Rafael, et al
  • Dengue Mosquitoes Are Single Mothers: Biopolitics Meets Ecological Aesthetics in Nicaraguan Community Health Work
    Nading, Alex M.
  • The Lively Ethics of Global Health GMOs: The Case of the Oxitec Mosquito
    Nading, Alex M.
  • Breed Wealth: Origins, Encounter Value, and the International Love of a Breed
    Nash, Catherine
  • The Oxitec Approach
  • The Job of Finding Food Is a Joke: Orangutan Rehabilitation, Work, Subsistence, and Social Relations
    Parreñas, Juno Salazar Besky, Sarah Blanchette, Alex
  • Os reis do quiabo: Meio ambiente, intervenções urbanísticas e constituição do lugar entre vazanteiros do médio parnaíba em Teresina-Piauí
    Pereira, Lucas
  • Late-Acting Dominant Lethal Genetic Systems and Mosquito Control
    Phuc, Hoang Andreasen, Morten H. Burton, Rosemary S. Vass, Céline Epton, Matthew J. Pape, Gavin Fu, Guoliang, et al
  • History of Domestication and Spread of Aedes aegypti—A Review
    Powell, Jeffrey Tabachnick, Walter
  • Making Companions: Companionability and Encounter Value in the Marketization of the American Mustang
    Pütz, Robert
  • Scientific Standards and the Regulation of Genetically Modified Insects
    Reeves, Guy Denton, Jai Santucci, Fiammetta Bryk, Jarosław Reed, Floyd
  • The Extinction Invention
    Regalado, Antonio
  • Uma antropologia da transmissão: Mosquitos, mulheres e a epidemia de Zika no Brasil
    Reis-Castro, Luísa Nogueira, Carolina de Oliveira
  • Winged Promises: Exploring the Discourse on Transgenic Mosquitoes in Brazil
    Reis-Castro, Luísa Hendrickx, Kim
  • Rear and Release: A New Paradigm for Dengue Control
    Ritchie, Scott
  • Eating (with) Piranhas: Untamed Approaches to Domestication
    Sautchuk, Carlos
  • A doença socialista e o mosquito dos pobres
    Segata, Jean
  • O Aedes aegypti e o digital
    Segata, Jean
  • Stem Cells, Tissue Cultures, and the Production of Biovalue
    Waldby, Catherine
  • Biologies of Betrayal: Judas Goats and Sacrificial Mice on the Margins of Mexico
    Wanderer, Emily
  • Cuidado nos tempos de Zika: Notas Da Pós-Epidemia Em Salvador (Bahia), Brasil
    Williamson, Eliza
  • Asian Tiger Mosquitos as Undesirable Cross-Border Commuters: Invasive Species and the Regulation of (Bio-)Insecurities in Europe
    Wolf, Meike Hall, Kevin
  • Kill All the Mosquitoes?! New Gene-Editing Technology Gives Scientists the Ability to Wipe out the Carriers of Malaria and the Zika Virus
    Adler, Jerry
  • Reproduction
    Almeling, Rene
  • Aegypti: Ideología de género, feminismo y extinción
    Amarillo, Claudia Rivera
  • Lively Commodities and Encounter Value
    Barua, Maan
  • Jumping Hurdles with Mosquitoes?
    Beisel, Uli
  • Markets and Mutations: Mosquito Nets and the Politics of Disentanglement in Global Health
    Beisel, Uli
  • The Flying Public Health Tool: Genetically Modified Mosquitoes and Malaria Control
    Beisel, Uli Boëte, and Christophe
  • Reinventing Mosquito Control: Experimental Trials and Nonscalable Relations in the Florida Keys
    Bennett, Priscilla Bardosh, Kevin
  • Herding Species: Biosecurity, Posthuman Labor, and the American Industrial Pig
    Blanchette, Alex
  • Insects, Colonies, and Idealization in the Early Americas
    Brown, Eric C.
  • Responsible Innovation and Political Accountability: Genetically Modified Mosquitoes in Brazil
    Campos, André Hartley, Sarah Koning, Christiaan de Lezaun, Javier Velho, Lea
  • I Fell in Love with Carlos the Meerkat: Engagement and Detachment in Human-Animal Relations
    Candea, Matei
  • Suppression of a Field Population of Aedes aegypti in Brazil by Sustained Release of Transgenic Male Mosquitoes
    Carvalho, Danilo McKemey, Andrew Garziera, Luiza Lacroix, Renaud Donnelly, Christl Alphey, Luke Malavasi, Aldo Capurro, Margareth
  • Mass Production of Genetically Modified Aedes aegypti for Field Releases in Brazil
    Carvalho, Danilo Nimmo, Derric Naish, Neil McKemey, Andrew Gray, Pam Wilke, André Marrelli, Mauro Virginio, Jair Alphey, Luke Capurro, Margareth
  • Precariedades oportunas, terapias insulares: Economias políticas da doença e da saúde na experimentação farmacêutica
    Castro, Rosana.
  • The Cycles of Eradication: The Rockefeller Foundation and Latin American Public Health (1918–1940)
    Cueto, Marcos Weindling, Paul
  • The Mosquito Struggle: Other-than-Vector Ecologies in a ‘Zika-Free’ Brazilian Sertão
    da Silva Maia, Túllio Dias
  • The Body We Care for: Figures of Anthropo-Zoo-Genesis
    Despret, Vinciane
  • Seção 1—Página 16, No 128, Quarta-Feira, 4 de Julho
  • Zika Virus Outbreak on Yap Island, Federated States of Micronesia
    Duffy, Mark R. Chen, Tai-Ho Hancock, W. Thane Powers, Ann M. Kool, Jacob L. Lanciotti, Robert S. Pretrick, Moses, et al
  • Transformer pour controlêr: Humains et moustiques à la réunion, à l’ère de la biosécurité
    Dupé, Sandrine
  • The Origin of the Family, Private Property, and the State
    Engels, Friedrich Tucker, Robert C.
  • Ethnographies of Encounter
    Faier, Lieba Rofel, Lisa
  • A World without Mosquitoes
    Fang, Janet
  • Natural Vertical Transmission of Dengue Virus in Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus: A Systematic Review
    Ferreira-De-Lima, Victor Henrique Lima-Camara, Tamara
  • Reinfestação do Brasil pelo Aedes aegypti: Considerações sôbre o risco de urbanização do vírus da febre amarela silvestre na região infestada
    Fraiha, Habib
  • Effect of Interruption of Over-Flooding Releases of Transgenic Mosquitoes over Wild Population of Aedes aegypti: Two Case Studies in Brazil
    Garziera, Luiza Pedrosa, Michelle Souza, Fabrício Gómez, Maylen Moreira, Márcia Virginio, Jair Capurro, Margareth Carvalho, Danilo
  • Oxitec’s Genetically Modified Mosquitoes: Ongoing Concerns
  • Sticky Lives: Slugs, Detachment, and More-than-Human Ethics in the Garden
    Ginn, Franklin
  • Living with Awkward Creatures: Vulnerability, Togetherness, Killing
    Ginn, Franklin Beisel, Uli Barua, Maan
  • Bodies That Count: Administering Multispecies in Palestine/Israel’s Borderlands
    Gutkowski, Natalia
  • Value-Added Dogs and Lively Capital
    Haraway, Donna
  • Field Performance of Engineered Male Mosquitoes
    Harris, Angela Nimmo, Derric McKemey, Andrew Kelly, Nick Scaife, Sarah Donnelly, Christl Beech, Camilla Petrie, William Alphey, Luke
  • Engendered Structures: Some Problems in the Analysis of Reproduction
    Harris, Olivia Young, Kate Kahn, Joel Llobera, Joseph
  • Species of Biocapital
    Helmreich, Stefan
  • Urban Mosquitoes, Situational Publics, and the Pursuit of Interspecies Separation in Dar es Salaam
    Kelly, Ann H. Lezaun, Javier
  • The Wild Indoors: Room-Spaces of Scientific Inquiry
    Kelly, Ann H. Lezaun, Javier
  • The CRISPR Hack: Better, Faster, Stronger
    Kirksey, Eben
  • The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography
    Kirksey, Eben Helmreich, Stefan
  • Open Field Release of Genetically Engineered Sterile Male Aedes Aegypti in Malaysia
    Lacroix, Renaud McKemey, Andrew R. Raduan, Norzahira Lim Kwee, Wee Wong, Hong Ming Teoh Guat, Ney Siti, Rahidah A. A., et al
  • Being Alongside: Rethinking Relations amongst Different Kinds
    Latimer, Joanna
  • A Vector in the (Re)Making: A History of Aedes aegypti as Mosquitoes That Transmit Diseases in Brazil
    Lopes, Gabriel Reis-Castro, Luísa Lynteris, Christos
  • Leaking Containers: Success and Failure in Controlling the Mosquito Aedes aegypti in Brazil
    Löwy, Ilana
  • ‘O que adianta conhecer muita gente e no fim das contas estar sempre só?’ O desafio da maternidade em tempos de síndrome congênita do Zika vírus
    Lustosa Alves, Raquel Fleischer, Soraya
  • Economic Impact of Dengue: Multicenter Study across Four Brazilian Regions
    Martelli, Celina Maria Turchi Jr, Joao Bosco Siqueira. Parente, Mirian Perpetua Palha Dias Zara, Ana Laura de Sene Amancio Oliveira, Consuelo Silva Braga, Cynthia SiqueiraJoao Bosco Jr., et al
  • Fitness of Transgenic Mosquito Aedes aegypti Males Carrying a Dominant Lethal Genetic System
    Massonnet-Bruneel, Blandine Corre-Catelin, Nicole Lacroix, Renaud Lees, Rosemary Hoang, Kim Phuc Nimmo, Derric Alphey, Luke Reiter, Paul
  • Evolution of Mosquito Preference for Humans Linked to an Odorant Receptor
    McBride, Carolyn Baier, Felix Omondi, Aman Spitzer, Sarabeth Lutomiah, Joel Sang, Rosemary Ignell, Rickard Vosshall, Leslie
  • Intimacy without Proximity: Encountering Grizzlies as a Companion Species
    Metcalf, Jacob
  • Situação epidemiológica/dados
  • Programa nacional de controle da dengue
  • Initial Description of the Presumed Congenital Zika Syndrome
    Miranda-Filho, Demócrito de Barros Martelli, Celina Maria Turchi Ximenes, Ricardo Arraes de Alencar Araújo, Thalis Velho Barreto Rocha, Maria Angela Wanderley Ramos, Regina Coeli Ferreira Dhalia, Rafael, et al
  • Dengue Mosquitoes Are Single Mothers: Biopolitics Meets Ecological Aesthetics in Nicaraguan Community Health Work
    Nading, Alex M.
  • The Lively Ethics of Global Health GMOs: The Case of the Oxitec Mosquito
    Nading, Alex M.
  • Breed Wealth: Origins, Encounter Value, and the International Love of a Breed
    Nash, Catherine
  • The Oxitec Approach
  • The Job of Finding Food Is a Joke: Orangutan Rehabilitation, Work, Subsistence, and Social Relations
    Parreñas, Juno Salazar Besky, Sarah Blanchette, Alex
  • Os reis do quiabo: Meio ambiente, intervenções urbanísticas e constituição do lugar entre vazanteiros do médio parnaíba em Teresina-Piauí
    Pereira, Lucas
  • Late-Acting Dominant Lethal Genetic Systems and Mosquito Control
    Phuc, Hoang Andreasen, Morten H. Burton, Rosemary S. Vass, Céline Epton, Matthew J. Pape, Gavin Fu, Guoliang, et al
  • History of Domestication and Spread of Aedes aegypti—A Review
    Powell, Jeffrey Tabachnick, Walter
  • Making Companions: Companionability and Encounter Value in the Marketization of the American Mustang
    Pütz, Robert
  • Scientific Standards and the Regulation of Genetically Modified Insects
    Reeves, Guy Denton, Jai Santucci, Fiammetta Bryk, Jarosław Reed, Floyd
  • The Extinction Invention
    Regalado, Antonio
  • Uma antropologia da transmissão: Mosquitos, mulheres e a epidemia de Zika no Brasil
    Reis-Castro, Luísa Nogueira, Carolina de Oliveira
  • Winged Promises: Exploring the Discourse on Transgenic Mosquitoes in Brazil
    Reis-Castro, Luísa Hendrickx, Kim
  • Rear and Release: A New Paradigm for Dengue Control
    Ritchie, Scott
  • Eating (with) Piranhas: Untamed Approaches to Domestication
    Sautchuk, Carlos
  • A doença socialista e o mosquito dos pobres
    Segata, Jean
  • O Aedes aegypti e o digital
    Segata, Jean
  • Stem Cells, Tissue Cultures, and the Production of Biovalue
    Waldby, Catherine
  • Biologies of Betrayal: Judas Goats and Sacrificial Mice on the Margins of Mexico
    Wanderer, Emily
  • Cuidado nos tempos de Zika: Notas Da Pós-Epidemia Em Salvador (Bahia), Brasil
    Williamson, Eliza
  • Asian Tiger Mosquitos as Undesirable Cross-Border Commuters: Invasive Species and the Regulation of (Bio-)Insecurities in Europe
    Wolf, Meike Hall, Kevin