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Session Submission Summary

Vaccine Histories and their Politics of Anticipation

Sat, September 7, 8:00 to 9:30am, Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, Floor: Four, Evergreen

Abstract

Pandemic preparedness, especially since Ebola crisis in 2013-2016, has regenerated vaccines as innovative biotechnologies and almost necessary tools for anticipation in global health. Anticipation is the material effect of a speculative future in the present (Adams, Murphy and Clarke, 2009), a fundamental concept of biomedicine in general and vaccination in particular which embodies future epidemic in a present preparation. Indeed, biomedical technologies and vaccines in particular have the potential to materialize anticipation in multiple ways by incorporating it at the individual and population levels. The presentations in this panel will display both anticipatory policies and the diversity of “biological futures” they invent (Radin, 2017), and their very social and political implications, from singular adventures (Moulin, 1996) to projects with universal pretensions (Rees, 2014). Participants working on vaccines or biomedical anticipations in colonial and postcolonial contexts, their materialization and the practices involved in their implementation and imagination are especially welcome. The papers could explore more broadly: biomedical anticipation practices, institutional reconfigurations organized around anticipated biomedical or vaccine promises, imaginary and temporalities related to these anticipations, anticipation policies shaped by vaccine or biomedical technologies and their social consequences in terms of capacity, protection and infrastructure. This panel will contribute to the global reflection on innovations through a historical perspective to better understand the current regeneration of anticipation.

Individual Presentations

Session Organizers