Paper short abstract

As monsters, animal and microbial chimeras shock us into looking afresh at old relations. In particular, their novelty forces us to ask what is not new about animal-borne diseases.

Paper long abstract

In this paper, I engage Stefan Helmreich's (2009) provocation that human relations with microbes "have social consequence, even ethical import." I show how scientists who study dengue fever have interacted, directly and indirectly, with a quasi-animal form, a chimeric dengue virus developed as part of a vaccine design project. Scientists with whom I worked found the chimera, a molecularly engineered microbe in which nonstructural dengue proteins were spliced into a yellow fever virus backbone, to be a convenient signifier for global health itself. Global health, too, was comprised of an unruly "three-headed" assemblage of capital, humanitarian, and security concerns. Drawing on the trope of the "monster" as elaborated in feminist science studies and in classic anthropological discussions of ritual, I argue that the advent of the GM virus did not create a wholly new moral landscape. Instead, the GM virus caused scientists to reflect on the way they and others already related to the non-GM version. As monsters, animal and microbial chimeras shock us into looking afresh at old relations. In particular, their novelty forces us to ask what isn't new about animal-borne diseases.