Notes
1 The full and clunky name of the organization is the European Centre for Disease Control and Prevention. The ECDC is the European agency set up to monitor disease threats to European citizens.
2 Country X must here remain anonymous due to the political repercussions that could emerge from its publication.
3 For Zika, see for instance: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/may/12/rio-olympics-zika-amir-attaran-public-health-threat. For cucumbers, see for instance: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-13625271 or https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ecoli-russia/russia-bans-eu-vegetables-over-e-coli-eu-protests-idUSTRE7514OG20110602
4 On the politics of satellite imagery see Witjes and Olbrich (2017).
5 In introducing modes of sensing I draw on a long tradition of STS work. In this I want to mention Fujimura and Chou’s (1994) and Hacking’s (1992) work as inspiration for this conceptual development. In Fujimura and Chou’s work on styles of practice they show how microbiologists and epidemiologists had different styles in determining the link between HIV and AIDS, which led to radically different conclusions. On the one hand, in the case of epidemiology, statistical correlations were seen as sufficient evidence of this link. On the other hand, in the case of the microbiologists, the search for causal evidence on the cell level was front and centre. And the conclusions were diametrically opposite: the epidemiologists argued that the epidemiological evidence was strong enough to link HIV with AIDS, while the microbiologists contended that there was no causal link. A politics of sensing of the highest degree. However, in keeping with the multiple vocabularies of Actor-Network Theory I here utilize the concept mode of sensing, as this emphasizes ANT’s conceptual history drawing on for instance Law’s (1994) work on modes of ordering – which also emphasizes difference, coordination, and heterogeneity – over the notion of style. Another important point is that style has closer links to addressing different professional styles, which is something I wish to avoid in this chapter. Thus, the focus in this chapter is on infrastructures and modes of sensing. See also Lee and Helgesson (2020) for a discussion of styles of valuation.
6 As I have pointed out elsewhere, just as with many actor-network theory concepts, the focus of Mol’s analysis is on the stabilization of facts, technologies, or in this case disease. The focus is on how the world becomes coherent and stable. To address the focus on construction stories in actor-network theory, me and Galis have suggested a strategy of creating antonyms to the construction concepts in actor-network theory (Galis and Lee 2014). This theoretical strategy also allows us to in this case suggest concepts for the disunity between different sensing infrastructures.
7 However, to be fair post-ANT has in many ways, and in dialog with different versions of Mol’s work also opened up for an analysis which highlights the obduracy and shaping force of non-human actors. See for instance, de Laet and Mol (2000).
8 This chapter focuses on the coordination of two infrastructures rather than a multiplicity, but the analytical potential for analysing multiplicities of infrastructures through modes of sensing remains the same.
9 The larger research project as well as the fieldwork was funded by the Swedish Research Council.
10 Of course genetics isn’t new as a technology, but as a sensing infrastructure in disease surveillance, the advent of affordable whole genome sequencing has made it possible to do a new type of analysis in tracking disease. Thus, I argue, the technology of genetics has become harnessed to build a new sensing infrastructure for disease surveillance.
11 This hope was also reflected in the work and priorities at the ECDC, where the genetics team was starting up a pilot project for systematically tracking disease through genomics.
12 Personal communication.
13 DP. Personal communication.
14 As noted above, this country must remain anonymous due to the political ramifications its publication could entail
15 On risk objects, see Hilgartner (1992).
16 On the telling of construction stories with ANT, see Galis and Lee (2014).
17 On the logic of lumping and splitting see Zerubavel (1996).
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