Paper short abstract:

This paper seeks to explore how the phenomenon of Lyme disease in North America challenges nature-society dichotomies through exploration of patient narratives from contact, diagnosis and treatment.

Paper long abstract:

This paper aims to account for the ways in which nature and culture coproduce the so-called North American epidemic of Lyme disease. I argue that Lyme disease is a result of techno-ecological interfaces and networks endemic to the Anthropocene such as climate change and that the mechanism of the disease itself challenges anthropocentric notions about boundaries of the self, agency and identity. Thus, through cascading links between various human and more-than-human actors, Lyme disease presents a veritable challenge to particular views of human individuals, their agency and implied mind-body dichotomies that originate from Renaissance and Enlightenment humanist thought. Through the examination of a collection of Lyme disease patient narratives, a reconfiguration and renewed understanding of the illness is proposed that casts new light on the boundaries between the human self and the non-human other, as well as the increasingly suspect dichotomy nature and culture.