The politics of irrationality

In siloed discussions of antimicrobial resistance, antibiotic use on farms in the Global South has emerged as a key site for intervention. The antibiotic consumption targeted is not all consumption, but “irrational” consumption. This concept of irrationality is neither new, nor true, but rather is a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Medical anthropology quarterly 2023-12, Vol.37 (4), p.382-395
Main Authors: Denyer Willis, Laurie, Kayendeke, Miriam, Chandler, Clare IR
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Animals
Anthropology, Medical
Anti-Bacterial Agents - therapeutic use
Antibiotics
Black people
Chickens
Consumption
Drug resistance
Farmers
Governance
Health care
Health services
Humanitarianism
Humans
Intervention
Irrationality
Original
Politics
Rationality
Resistance
Uganda
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Summary:In siloed discussions of antimicrobial resistance, antibiotic use on farms in the Global South has emerged as a key site for intervention. The antibiotic consumption targeted is not all consumption, but “irrational” consumption. This concept of irrationality is neither new, nor true, but rather is a long‐standing form of maintenance work within global health systems. Via an attention to chickens and the antibiotics farmers use to raise them in the suburbs of Kampala, we suggest that claims of irrationality are a central part of constituting what Tania Li has called the ‘deficient subject’. In other words, irrationality, like the chicken and the antibiotic, is itself a humanitarian device that maintains a certain condition of governance where ‘Africans’ are imagined as being in deficit of rationality and good behavior. Claims of irrationality justify (and mask the political nature of) intervention.
ISSN:0745-5194
1548-1387
DOI:10.1111/maq.12809