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Using recent developments in social theory, this book offers questions about how bacteria, viruses, microscopic materials and societies develop in tandem. The examples discussed – from urban infrastructures to the medieval plague and from antibiotic resistance to epigenetics –develop an account of how previous and present arrangements make some futures more likely than others and how unequal patterns of exposure and entanglement arise. This book aims to demonstrate the relevance of social and practice theories by overcoming classic distinctions between the very small and the very large, between agency and structure, and between nature and culture.
“This is an engaging, lively text that not only challenges many standard bioscientific framings, but also the current literature in the social sciences.” • Simon Cohn, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Elizabeth Shove is Professor of Sociology at Lancaster University and Fellow of the British Academy. She was co-director of the DEMAND Centre (Dynamics of Energy, Mobility and Demand) from 2013-2019. Elizabeth has written, co-authored or edited numerous books and papers, including Connecting Practices: Large Topics in Society and Social Theory, the Nexus of Practices (Taylor and Francis, 2022), and The Dynamics of Social Practice: Everyday Life and How It Changes (SAGE, 2012).
Introduction: Starting Points
Part I: Encounters and Exposures
Chapter 1. Separation and Concentration: Water Infrastructures in Practice
Chapter 2. Contagion and Circulation: How Infectious Diseases Spread
Part II: Entanglement and Intermingling
Chapter 3. Recursive Relations and Spatial Distributions: Antibiotics and Antimicrobial Resistance in Practice
Chapter 4. Passing Through and Passing On: Beyond Embodiment
Part III: Differences and Directions
Chapter 5. Qualities and Inequalities: The Air We Breathe
Conclusion
References
Index