Paper short abstract:

In this paper, I ask how to bring the oxygen tank, a ‘thing’ that transforms a substance from invisible to visible, and intangible to tangible, into focus. I will consider whether existing theories and concepts are adequate for ‘following the thing’ in this case, both theoretically and practically.

Paper long abstract:

Our unequivocal dependence on oxygen comes into sharp, and often traumatic focus when the normalcy of breathing is disrupted by illness. When the lungs can no long sufficiently oxygenate the blood, supplemental oxygen is needed, and home-based oxygen machines or cylinders (i.e. tanks) become part of life - an extension of one's body. What was once free, through commodification and global trade, comes at significant cost to health systems and individuals and is of key concern for global health. Ethnographic research on chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Uruguay (2009-2014) found sharp divisions in access to oxygen along economic and geographic lines. Furthermore, while the oxygen tanks moved around the country, the humans dependent upon them found their mobility restricted to a few meter radius. These perplexities and inequalities begged further research with an explicit focus on oxygen. In December 2015, with National Research Foundation of South Africa funding, I will begin tracing oxygen in its commoditized form in South Africa and Uruguay. I plan to follow oxygen from its macro-economic position as a global medicinal oxygen industry, to its everyday salience for people with lung-disease, stopping along the way to examine other curious forms, such as its leisurely consumption (ex: 'oxygen bars'). In this paper, I ask how to bring the oxygen tank, a 'thing' that transforms a substance from invisible to visible, and intangible to tangible, into focus. I will consider whether existing theories and concepts are adequate for 'following the thing' in this case, both theoretically and practically.