Paper short abstract:

The paper aims to investigate conflicting enactments of the bacterium Streptococcus group A and risk in a medical debate on the national guidelines for management of throat infection in Sweden. It is argued that these conflicting enactments draw on different microbiopolitics, which makes the conflict endure.

Paper long abstract:

In the autumn of 2013 a number of articles, warning for the spread of a "flesh-eating" "murder bacterium" were to be found in the Swedish newspapers. One article stated: "a lethal flesh-eating bacterium is currently spreading with an alarming speed in northern Stockholm".

While the flesh-eating bacterium seems as a caricature of the evil germ, a more positive approach towards bacteria has won ground over the last decades, both in news media and science. For example Ingram (2007) argues that we need to positively embrace the relationship between human and bacteria. In the STS-field the relation between microbes and human beings has been used to rethink the boundaries of the (human) organism, as well as the human position and place in the world and ecosystem.

In this paper the bacterium streptococcus group A takes the title role. This is the bacterium the alarming news described above - the flesh eating murder bacterium - but it is also the bacterium that causes mundane infections like bacterial tonsillitis (strep throat). This paper aims to investigate conflicting enactments of the bacterium Streptococcus group A and risk in a medical debate on the national guidelines for management of throat infection in Sweden. It is argued in the paper that these conflicting enactments draw on different understandings of the relations between the human and the microbial world - different microbiopolitics (Paxon 2008) - and that this is what makes the conflict endure.