Who’s afraid of Ebola? Epidemic fires and locative fears in the Information Age

Abstract

Epidemics have traditionally been viewed as the widespread occurrence of infectious disease within a community, or a sudden increase above what is typical. But modern epidemics are both more and less than the diffusion of viral entities. We argue that epidemics are ‘fire objects’, using a term coined by Law and Singleton: They generate locative fears through encounters that focus attention on entities that are unknown or imprecisely known, transforming spaces and humans into indeterminate dangers, alternating appearance and absence. The Ebola epidemic of 2014 had more complex impacts than the number of infections would suggest. We employ multi-sited qualitative interviews to argue that locative fear is the essence of modern global epidemics. In the discussion we contrast Ebola with both the Zika epidemic that followed and the ongoing coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.

Family Planning in the Sierra Leone Ebola Outbreak: Women's Proximal and Distal Reasoning

“…Many of the factors that women reported have impact on their decisions to take (or not take) FP related to the proximity to the disease either in the form of people (like health care workers) or geographic locations (like health care centers). This is a similar idea to that described by Shrum et al when discussing Ebola across many countries, who used the term "locative," which they defined "as concern for one's personal well-being in spaces where microbial threats are, have been or might be" (Shrum et al 2020). This framework is particularly useful in thinking about Ebola given how it is transmitted, through contact with bodies or body fluids, and the role of health care facilities in the potential mitigation or spread of the infection.…”

Layering risk work amidst an emerging crisis: an ethnographic study on the governance of the COVID-19 pandemic in a university hospital in the Netherlands

“…Limited by the scarcities most of our participants had not encountered before and limited by the many unknowns and uncertainties on COVID-19, hospital board and staff-members worked hard -togetherto interpret the situation as one of being 'at-risk'. The risk-object, COVID-19, proved elusive, akin to a 'fire object' as it appears to generate fear and anxiety because of its invisibility, its possible presence transforming the university hospital building, staff and patients into indeterminate dangers (Shrum et al, 2020). However, our participant's risk work produced several objects-at-risk (Boholm & Corvellec, 2011); the organisation atrisk of lacking capacity to treat all, staff at-risk of being infected and being infectious and, lastly, the entire Dutch healthcare-system at-risk.…”

Dancing with a Virus: Finding New Rhythms of Organizing and Caring in Dutch Hospitals

“…This is particularly relevant in case of a virus that is unstable, invisible, and enduring. In a recent publication, and referring to the Ebola outbreak (a more often used comparison to COVID-19) Shrum et al (2020) depict the Ebola virus as a 'fire object' that generates fear because of its invisibility and possible presence, transforming spaces and humans (as well as 'stuff'-e.g., in the Netherlands some hospitals have forbidden postcards as these may carry the virus) in indeterminate dangers. The importance of moving through space, and the architectural features of (transforming) space into an (un)healthy place, has also been explained in the medical sociological literature.…”

“…They insisted on wearing the hats as they felt they deserved optimal protection as they had already put themselves and their loved ones at risk. Being a fire object (Shrum et al, 2020), it was felt that the virus and maybe 'death' could catch them or their loved ones without noticing. Some nurses confessed how they had slept separately from their spouses these first weeks and did no longer hug their children.…”