Chapter 7 Mapping patchy malaria: the role of drone technologies in depicting particular environments and contingent risk

In: Planetary health approaches to understand and control vector-borne diseases
Authors:
Jacob Brockmann Department of Anthropology, University College London 14 Taviton St, London WC1H 0BW UK

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Dalia Iskander Department of Anthropology, University College London 14 Taviton St, London WC1H 0BW UK

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Type:
Chapter
Pages:
183–205
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3920/9789004688650_009

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Abstract

This chapter is based on an anthropological study of a global, multidisciplinary network of researchers (MACONDO) that use drone technologies to support malaria vector control programmes. The purpose of this study was to investigate the ways in which drone technology for malaria control is deployed by various researchers and the implications the different applications had for the way malaria was conceived of and dealt with. It reports two key findings. First, that drone technologies reflected and mediated a shift towards thinking about malaria as multiple and emergent within heterogenous landscapes. Second, that in the hands of various researchers, malaria ‘environments’ were rendered ‘partial’ and ‘particular’ and risk equally fragmented. As a result, we highlight the ‘patchy’ character of malaria landscapes that drone technologies mediate and the challenge this poses to global health narratives based on ‘concrete’ and ‘neutral’ scientific ways of knowing.

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Series:  Ecology and Control of Vector-borne Diseases, Volume: 8
Cover Planetary health approaches to understand and control vector-borne diseases
E-Book ISBN:
9789004688650
Publisher:
Wageningen Academic
Print Publication Date:
13 Dec 2023
Front Matter
Introduction
Part 1 Impacts of environmental change on VBD ecology
Part 2 Coupled human and natural systems
Part 3 VBD surveillance and control in changing environments
Back Matter

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