Paper short abstract:

The paper will examine the photography of Chinese wet markets which epidemiologists hold to be the breeding grounds of new animal-to-human pathogens (e.g. influenza) and whether the resulting visual regime orientalises influenza, contributing to a Sinophobic imagination of the “next pandemic”.

Paper long abstract:

Dominant trends in epidemiological research and medical journalism today share a belief in the "next pandemic", a microbiological catastrophe of biblical proportions that threatens to annihilate humanity. Expected to arise out of a zoonotic spillover, in most cases a newly emergent or mutant form of animal-to-human influenza, the ground zero of the "next pandemic" is located in so-called wet markets, live animal markets in East Asia and China in particular. Focusing on photographic representations of wet markets since the 1997 bird flu outbreak in Hong Kong, this paper will critically examine the visual regime constructed around and supporting this outbreak narrative. The paper will inquire whether this photography of the imagined as dangerous proximity and contact between animals and humans in fact orientalises influenza and contributes to a Sinophobic imagination of the "next pandemic".