Paper short abstract:

This paper draws upon fieldwork in Sierra Leone to examine the use of infection control materials to interrupt and control human interconnectedness

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores attempts to use objects to interrupt and separate out dangerous forms of contact within relations of care, drawing upon ethnographic fieldwork carried out in peripheral health facilities in Sierra Leone as part of an intervention to improve infection control during the Ebola outbreak. The paper examines health workers' attempts to use infection control materials to manage perilous proximities. It explores how the ambivalent materiality of these objects - which can both protect people and spread disease - constantly threatens to undermine attempts at the bifurcation of relations of care and relations of contact, as health workers seek to protect their patients and also care for themselves. It explores the new forms of affective engagement and institutional orderings that are emerging from these attempts to interrupt and control human interconnectedness in a time of crisis.