Delves into the relationship between war and disease, focusing on Colombian armed conflict and the skin disease known as cutaneous leishmaniasis. Cutaneous leishmaniasis, transmitted by female sandflies, produces skin lesions of varying size and shape. In Colombia, the insect vector of the disease is native to the same forested environments that have served as the main stage for one of the longest and most violent wars in Latin American history. As a result, the populations most affected by leishmaniasis in Colombia are members of the state army and nonstate armed groups. Lina Pinto-García explores how leishmaniasis and the armed conflict are inextricably connected and mutually reinforcing. Maraña means “tangle” in Spanish but is also commonly used in Colombia to name the entangled greenery, braided lianas, and dense foliage that characterize the tropical forests where leishmaniasis transmission typically occurs. Pinto-García argues that leishmaniasis and the war are not merely linked but enmarañadas to each other through narratives, technologies, and practices produced by the state, medicine, biomedical research, and the armed conflict itself. All told, Maraña is a passionate study of how war has shaped the production of scientific knowledge about leishmaniasis and access to its treatments in Colombia.
Format: Paperback / softback
CONTRIBUTORS: Lina Pinto-García
EAN: 9780226839349
COUNTRY: United States
PAGES: 240
WEIGHT: 313 g
HEIGHT: 229 mm
PUBLISHED BY: The University of Chicago Press
DATE PUBLISHED: 2025-04-29
CITY:
GENRE: HISTORY / Military / General, MEDICAL / Diseases, MEDICAL / Infectious Diseases, MEDICAL / Military Medicine, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Anthropology / Cultural & Social, SOCIAL SCIENCE / Cultural & Ethnic Studies / Caribbean & Latin American Studies
WIDTH: 152 mm
SPINE:
Book Themes:
Colombia, Warfare and defence, Diseases and disorders, Medical specialties, branches of medicine
Lina Pinto-García is a postdoctoral fellow in the Connected Minds program at York University in Canada. She is also a research affiliate of the School of Anthropology and Museum Ethnography at the University of Oxford.