Short Abstract:

An open forum for researchers whose work follows or intersects mosquitos.

Long Abstract:

Ever since European scientists lay claim to discovering the ‘mosquito theory’ of malaria in the late 19th century, mosquitos have been high on the Global North agenda. In 'Can the mosquito speak?' Mitchell (2002) argues that cannot ignore the agency of mosquitos, specifying that social scientists follow the complex agencies that make a situation. Nading’s work ‘Mosquito Trails’ (2014) does precisely this, following the early work of mosquito biotechnology whilst Reis-Castro (2021) considers the geopolitics of knowledge and the politics of location and asks us to consider 'mosquito theories from the south'. Alongside this Shah's work (2011) implies that methodological individualism in global health generates an obsession in the north with mosquitos, whilst PReP Dispatches (2021) outline how attempts to broaden this focus beyond mosquitos through using notions such as 'land-use' merely add more 'trees' to the equation whilst remaining doggedly blind to 'the forest'. At the same time 'new' mosquito and malaria programmes and technologies have popped up and taken over from old ones, retracing the same loop of locations from yesteryear, each time promising to succeed where the last claimed the same. Where does our work fit into these developments? Perhaps you draw a different tale? How are you intervening? What are your theories of change? Do they come from the north or the south? Have they been learnt with mosquitos? 'How' in terms of what methods? How are we reconfiguring mosquito possibilities? Lets get together, learn what different mosquito anthropologists are up to and have a chat.