Alex Nading III
Professional Biography
I am a medical and environmental anthropologist with a regional focus on Latin America. My research has explored the multi-species aspects of infectious diseases, the relationship between place and health in the age of global biomedical interventions, and the relevance of landscape to people’s conceptions of well-being. Most of my fieldwork has taken place in a low-income suburb of Managua, Nicaragua, but I have also done research in Puerto Rico, Cuba, and the United States. I teach courses on the environment and ecological thought in anthropology; medical anthropology; contemporary Latin America; and social anthropology.
I came to anthropology via the most conventional of routes: an introductory undergraduate course. I was delightfully confused. Many years later, I am still pursuing the basic questions that my undergraduate professors raised. Here at F&M, I am always keen to work with students interested in the social and cultural aspects of public health, the environment, science and technology, and bioethics.
Education
B.A. Anthropology and English, University of Virginia
M.A. Anthropology of Development and Social Transformation, University of Sussex (UK)
Ph.D. Anthropology, University of Wisconsin-Madison
Research Interests
At present, I am working on two research projects.
The first is based on fieldwork I carried out in Nicaragua between 2007 and 2009, funded by the Social Science Research Council, Fulbright-Hays, and the National Science Foundation. It describes how Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua became a waypoint in the global spread of dengue fever. Dengue is a mosquito-borne illness that now threatens over two billion people worldwide, mostly in the urban tropics. The focus of my study was a series of house-to-house dengue prevention campaigns in which government experts linked urban livelihood practices—specifically the collection and sale of recyclable waste—to the propagation of dengue mosquitoes. During 24 months of fieldwork, I observed numerous such campaigns and worked in streets and dumps alongside informal garbage scavengers. I also interviewed local health workers, national policymakers, and international dengue scientists. I found that ostensibly neutral biomedical ideas about dengue became bound up in a complex history of urban poverty and political mobilization. Public awareness of dengue’s spread reignited longstanding local debates about women’s responsibility for household hygiene, the effects of an informal waste economy on the environment, and the presence of the state in the private lives of the poor.
My new research project is on the ethics and economics of dengue vaccine research. Over the past decade, a dramatic increase in dengue transmission has created a potential billion-dollar market for this vaccine. A global product development partnership aimed at accelerating the development of a viable vaccine is now underway. Vaccine development in such partnerships involves a combination of bench research, humanitarian donor capital, and corporate pharmaceutical marketing. Dengue vaccine initiatives promise to recalibrate relationships both between scientists and their funders and between scientists and people in the low-income urban tropics where dengue is endemic.
The study of technology and the environment has also led me to investigate the world of artisanal aluminum recycling in Nicaragua. This work has allowed me to anthropologically indulge my interest in what used to be called "outsider art."
Publications
Forthcoming. “’Love Isn’t There in Your Stomach:’ A Moral Economy of Medical Citizenship among Nicaraguan Community Health Workers,” Medical Anthropology Quarterly
2012. “’Dengue Mosquitoes are Single Mothers:’ Biopolitics Meets Ecological Aesthetics in Nicaraguan Community Health Work,” Cultural Anthropology 27 (4): 572-596. Article here.
2011 “Foundry Values: Artisanal Aluminum Recyclers, Economic Involution, and Skill in Periurban Managua” Urban Anthropology 40(3-4): 319-360. Article here.
Course Information
Spring 2013
ANT 100, Social Anthropology
ANT 272, Medical Anthropology
ANT 373, Culture and the Environment
