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Paper short abstract:

In 2018 there was a Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza H5N1 outbreak in my fieldsite in Laos. I was one of the "chicken farmers" most affected. In this paper, I examine the values and temporalities of my response to the outbreak as compared to those of local government officials and my neighbours.

Paper long abstract:

Outbreaks of infectious disease often provoke questions of "who/what is to blame?" and "what can be done?" Dominant liberal-democratic and biomedical answers frequently involve voluntarist models of human agency which imply a forward-looking temporal link between intent and act. In 2018, I was involved as a "chicken farmer" in an outbreak of H5N1 in Lao PDR while living in a rural village as part of my anthropological fieldwork. Reflecting on this experience shows how voluntarist models of agency structured my reactions to the outbreak, but were also motivated by sometimes inchoate fears and fantasies. Furthermore, my voluntarist model was not shared by important local government figures or my neighbours. My neighbours acted out what I call a relational-reparative approach. This approach was retrospective, taking outbreak as a demand to investigate how we had been relating to one another, to animals and to things. It conceived of agents as responsibilized by networks of entanglement. I suggest that the reparative-relational approach be considered as an inspiration for improved responses to infectious disease. The role for anthropology in outbreak situations that I demonstrate and argue for here is one where the anthropologist helps herself and others to learn from, rather than about, different world views.