Paper short abstract:

By examining the social scientific debates on AMR, this paper examines the assumptions and justifications around the ecology of AMR.

Paper long abstract:

The recent developments in multispecies ethnography continue to shape research projects and policy interventions on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a public health priority. The objective here is to reduce the overuse of antibiotics in human and non-human settings. In this paper, we explore what is at stake in the making of knowledge around AMR. The World Health Organisation framed AMR as a question of 'One Health approach'. Scientific approaches to AMR focus on interdisciplinary 'solutions'. At the same time, anthropologists Kathryn M. Orzech and Mark Nichter considered AMR as a problem within the debates on global health (2008). Following microbes (Kirksey and Helmreich, 2010: 555), as an object of anthropological enquiry is challenging both conceptually and methodologically. By examining the social scientific debates on AMR, this paper examines the assumptions and justifications around the ecology of AMR.

Cited works:

Kirksey S. E., and S. Helmreich. 2010. The Emergence of Multispecies Ethnography. Cultural Anthropology, 25 (4), 545-576.

Orzech, K. M., and M. Nichter. 2008. From Resilience to Resistance: Political Ecological

Lessons from Antibiotic and Pesticide Resistance. Annual Review of Anthropology

37, 267-282.