Serotype: exploring the embodied experience of having dengue fever

Abstract

This article studies how different forms of knowledge about dengue fever are created and negotiated. I explore how anthropology, in tandem with ideas and practices drawn from science and art, may transform public understandings of dengue in Medellín, Colombia. After showing why health campaigns cannot be reduced to a matter of eliminating mosquito-breeding sites, I argue that these campaigns should be re-designed—privileging relations and stimulating debate—by focusing on experience and moving towards managing the disease and living with the mosquito. I advocate for interdisciplinary collaboration as a relational strategy that can generate an intersubjective exchange of experiences.

Keywords

• dengue
• Serotype
• embodiment
• experience
• relational art
• health campaigns