B8844 - More-Than - Human Health: Anthropological Perspectives

Learning outcomes

This course introduces students to the anthropological study of human, animal, and environmental health in an increasingly interconnected and mobile world. Focusing on case studies such as infectious disease control and quarantines, the monitoring of epidemics, antimicrobial resistance and zoonotic spillovers, students will develop a critical knowledge of global health frameworks such as One Health and how they relate to more-than-human health, from intergovernmental governance to grassroots activism. Drawing on interdisciplinary fields—Science and Technology Studies, Global Health, Anthropology, and History of Medicine— students will investigate how global trade networks, capitalist extractivism and mobility shape the intersections of toxicity, pollution, and disease. Students will learn to think critically about the circulation of ‘unruly’ materials and substances such as waste, pollutants and germs. By the end of the course, students will have gained a nuanced understanding of how environmental degradation and systemic inequalities drive interspecies health crises, equipping them to critically address challenges at the nexus of human and planetary health.

Course contents

This course is organised around 15 2-hour lectures which will cover a breadth of topics related to health and more-than-human entaglements. Some lectures will introduce key topics in a frontal lecture format based on regular exchange with the students, whilst others will be student-led sessions. Below I provide a break-down of the topics we will study together; further down, in the Bibliography section, I have listed the main readings we will critically engage with in class. All resources, additional information and instructions will be provided on Virtuale.

 

Lecture 1: Health and More-than-Human Entanglements: A Critical Introduction.

 

Lecture 2: Health Governance and Multispecies Justice: From Global Health to One Health to Planetary Health.

 

Lecture 3: Student-led Session on Health Governance & Rights.

Students will present group-based research on global frameworks that govern human and non-human health following prompts I will provide in class and on Virtuale. This session will enable students to consolidate their legal and policy knowledge on health rights and health law, both human and non-human.

 

Lecture 4: Animald Health 1: Vectors and Animal Reservoirs in Pandemic Preparedness.

 

Lecture 5: Animal Health 2: Non-Humans at the Border.

 

Lecture 6: Student-led Session on Animal Health: Presentations on Case-Studies Worldwide.

 

Lecture 7: Unruly Germs: Bacteria and Antimicrobial Resistance.

 

Lecture 8: Sick Trees: Feral Epidemics in the Plantation Economies

 

 

Lecture 9: Student-led Session on Bacteria, Viruses, Fungi & their Agency.

 

Lecture 10: Soils and Toxins of the Anthropocene.

 

Lecture 11: The Colonialism of Waste 1: E-Waste & Landfill Sites.

 

Lecture 12: The Colonialism of Waste 2: Materials & Textiles.

 

Lecture 13: Student-led Session on Unruly Pollution and Health: Case-Studies Worldwide.

 

Lecture 14: Decolonial Ecologies, Multispecies Grief and Convivial Ethics in a More-than-Human World.

 

Lecture 15: Revision Session and Student-led Presentations.

Readings/Bibliography

Lecture 1: Health and More-than-Human Entanglements: A Critical Introduction.

- Brown H. & Nading A.M. 2019. 'Introduction: Human Animal Health in Medical Anthropology'. Med Anthropol Q 33(1):5-23. doi: 10.1111/maq.12488.https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6492111/

- Cañada J.A., Sariola S., Butcher A. 2022. 'In Critique of Anthropocentrism: A More-than-Human Ethical Framework for Antimicrobial Resistance.' Medical Humanities 48:e16: https://mh.bmj.com/content/48/4/e16.

- Kehr, J. 2020. 'For a More-than-Human Public Health'. BioSocieties 15, 650–663. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1057/s41292-020-00210-8.

- Nading, A. 2013. 'Humans, Animals, and Health: From Ecology to Entanglement'. Environment and Society: Advances in Research 4: 60–78: https://www.envirosociety.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/4.4-Alex-M.-Nading-Humans-Animals-and-Health.pdf

 

Lecture 2: Health Governance and Multispecies Justice: From Global Health to One Health to Planetary Health.

- Hussain M, et al. 2023. 'Colonization and Decolonization of Global Health: Which Way Forward?'. Global Health Action. 16(1):2186575. doi: 10.1080/16549716.2023.2186575. PMID: 36940174; PMCID: PMC10035955.

- Janes, C. et al. 2022. 'Global Health'. In Sinder, M et al (eds) A Companion to Medical Anthropology. https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/9781119718963.ch6.

- Lainé N & Morand S. 2020. 'Linking Humans, their Animals, and the Environment Again: A Decolonized and More-than- Human Approach to “One Health”. Parasite 27, 55: https://www.parasite-journal.org/articles/parasite/full_html/2020/01/parasite200055/parasite200055.html

 

Lecture 3: Student-led Session on Health Governance & Rights.

Students will present group-based research on global frameworks that govern human and non-human health following prompts I will provide in class and on Virtuale. This session will enable students to consolidate their legal and policy knowledge on health rights and health law, both human and non-human.

 

Lecture 4: Animald Health 1: Vectors and Animal Reservoirs in Pandemic Preparedness.

- Blanchette, A. 2015. 'Herding Species: Biosecurity, Posthuman Labor, and the American Industrial Pig'. Cultural Anthropology 30:4. https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.14506/ca30.4.09

- Cole, T. 2025. 'Can Mosquitoes be Kin? Conservation, Conviviality, and Enmity Among “Pests” From Myanmar to Singapore'. Society and Animals 33(2). http://dx.doi.org/10.1163/15685306-bja10232.

Fearnley, L. 2015. 'Wild Goose Chase: The Displacement of Influenza Research in the Fields of Poyang Lake, China'. Cultural Anthropology 30:1. https://journal.culanth.org/index.php/ca/article/view/ca30.1.03/258

- Torquato, A.C. & Gueriros, A. L. 2023. 'The Role of Animals in Pandemic Narratives: Forewarning Disaster, Causing Outbreaks, Conferring Immunity'. In Völkl, Y. et al. (eds) Pandemic Protagonists: Viral (Re)Actions in Pandemic and Corona Fictions. Verlag Publishers: 199-222.

 

Lecture 5: Animal Health 2: Non-Humans at the Border.

- Laocharoenwong, J. 2022. 'Cattle Hotels and Infrastructures of Care'. Roadsides 8: 9-16. https://roadsides.net/laocharoenwong-008/.

- Smart A. & Smart J. 2012. 'Quarantine, Biosecurity and Life Across the Border'. In T. Wilson & H. Donnan (eds) A Companion to Border Studies. New York: Wiley-Blackwell: pp.354-370. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/340065271_Quarantine_biosecurity_and_life_across_the_border

- Svendsen, M.N. 2025. 'Selective Fencing at Denmark’s Biological, Politico-Geographical and Genomic ‘Borders’. In A. Pohl Harrisson &
M. Eilenberg (eds) Fences and Biosecurity: The Politics of Governing Unruly Nature. Helsinki: Helsinki University Press: 199–229. https://
doi.org/10.33134/HUP-30-7.

 

Lecture 6: Student-led Session on Animal Health: Presentations on Case-Studies Worldwide.

 

Lecture 7: Unruly Germs: Bacteria and Antimicrobial Resistance.

- Bjerke, L. 2025. 'Antibiotics in the Environment: Molecularisation, Drug Resistance and Pharmaceutical Pollution in India'. BioSocieties. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41292-025-00353-6

- Kirchhelle, C. 2023. 'The Antibiocene: Towards an Eco-Social Analysis of Humanity’s Antimicrobial Footprint'. Humanit Soc Sci Commun 10 (619). https://doi.org/10.1057/s41599-023-02127-6.

- Sudenkaarne, T. & Butcher, A. 2024. 'From Super-Wicked Problems to More-than-Human Justice: New Bioethical Frameworks for Antimicrobial Resistance and Climate Emergency'. Monash Bioeth. Rev. 42 (Suppl 1), 51–71. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40592-024-00197-z

Mendelson, M. et al. 2024. 'Antimicrobial Resistance and the Great Divide: Inequity in Priorities and Agendas Between the Global North and the Global South Threatens Global Mitigation of Antimicrobial Resistance'. The Lancet Global Health 12 (3): e516 - e52. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(23)00554-5/fulltext

 

Lecture 8: Sick Trees: Feral Epidemics in the Plantation Economies

- Chao, S. 2021. 'The Beetle or the Bug? Multispecies Politics in a West Papuan Oil Palm Plantation'. American Anthropologist 123 (3): https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/aman.13592

- Reisman, E. 2021. 'Plants, Pathogens, and the Politics of Care: Xylella fastidiosa and the Intra-active Breakdown of Mallorca's Almond Ecology', Cultural Anthropology 36 (3): https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.14506/ca36.3.07

- Urapeepathanapong, T. & al. 2022. 'Seeing Green: Plants, Pests, Pathogens, People and Pharmaceuticalisation in Thai Mandarin Orchards'.Medicine Anthropology Theory, 9(2), 1-29. https://doi.org/10.17157/mat.9.2.5374

Lecture 9: Student-led Session on Bacteria, Viruses, Fungi & their Agency.

 

Lecture 10: Soils and Toxins of the Anthropocene

- Bond, D. 2021. 'Contamination in Theory and Protest', American Ethnologist 48 (4): https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/amet.13035

- Dewan, C. 2023. 'Toxic Residues in Fluid Commons: More-Than-Economic Dispossession and Shipbreaking in Coastal Bangladesh'. Ethnos, 89(3), 459–479. https://doi.org/10.1080/00141844.2023.2208309

- Dewan, C. & Sibilia, E. A. 2023. 'Introduction to Special Issue: “Scaled Ethnographies of Toxic Flows”. Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, 42(1), 5-12. https://doi.org/10.1177/23996544231218826

- Krishna, A. 2024. 'Tales Behind a Spice: Toxified Terrain and Tortured Bodies in the Making of Indian Small Cardamom'. Global Environment 17 (2): https://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/full/10.3828/whpge.63837646622492

 

Lecture 11: The Colonialism of Waste 1: E-Waste & Landfill Sites.

- Enkh-Amgalan, Z. 2025. 'Virtue of Garbage: An Ethnographic Photo Essay on the Ulaanchuluut Landfill'. Inner Asia. Doi:10.1163/22105018-02701006.

- Little, P. 2018. 'Bodies, Toxins, and E-Waste Labour Interventions
in Ghana: Toward a Toxic Postcolonial Corporality?' AIBR
Revista de Antropología Iberoamericana 14 (1): https://www.waunet.org/wcaa/archive/downloads/wcaa/dejalu/march_2021/AIBR,%20Revista%20de%20Antropolog%C3%ADa%20Iberoamericana_translation.pdf

- Ng, A. 2023. 'Transforming Toxic Materialities: Microbes in Anthropogenically Polluted Soils'. Theory, Culture & Society, 42(1), 37-52. https://doi.org/10.1177/02632764231187580

 

Lecture 12: The Colonialism of Waste 2: Materials & Textiles.

- Crang, P. et al. 2020. 'Discardscapes of Fashion: Commodity Biography, Patch Geographies, and Preconsumer Garment Waste in Cambodia'. Social & Cultural Geography, 23 (4), 539–558. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2020.1777322.

- Pathak, G. & Nichter, M. 2023. 'Navigating Crises of Scale in the Anthropocene A Note to Engaged Anthropologists'. Anthropology in Action 30 (1): https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/aia/30/1/aia300103.xml?ArticleBodyColorStyles=full-text.

- Pathak, G. 2025. '“The Statistical View Is Not the Moral View”: Disposable Medical Plastics as Toxic Infrastructure'. American Anthropologist https://anthrosource.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/aman.28083.

 

Lecture 13: Student-led Session on Unruly Pollution and Health: Case-Studies Worldwide.

 

Lecture 14: Decolonial Ecologies, Multispecies Grief and Convivial Ethics in a More-than-Human World

- García, M.E. 2019. 'Death of a Guinea Pig: Grief and the Limits of Multispecies Ethnography in Peru'. Environmental Humanities 11 (2): 351–372: https://doi.org/10.1215/22011919-7754512

- McKibbin (Kāi Tahu), P. 2025. 'Kaupapa Māori and Multispecies Justice: A reciprocal critique'. AlterNative: An International Journal of Indigenous Peoples, 21(1), 11-21. https://doi.org/10.1177/11771801251318445

- Strang, V. 2023. 'Living kindness: Re-imagining kinship for a more humane future'. Critique of Anthropology, 43(4), 476-494. https://doi.org/10.1177/0308275X231216256

- van Bommel, S., & Boonman-Berson, S. 2022.' Transforming Convivial Conservation: Towards More-Than-Human Participation in Research'. Conservation & Society, 20(2), 136–145. https://www.jstor.org/stable/27143336.

 

Lecture 15: Revision Session and Student-led Presentations.

Teaching methods

Student attendance and participation in class is required. Students are expected to be on time and to engage actively in class, taking notes and listening to lectures and presentations, asking questions etc.

Teaching will be organised both as (1) frontal lectures (accompanied by slides, video clips, etc.) and (2) student-led learning (student presentations, written work and group discussions). Students will be asked to prepare for class by reading at least one of the designated readings for the day, even if they are not presenting in class. Active participation, questions, suggestions and spontaneous ideas in class are all encouraged and part of the learning experience and will win extra points.

Details of the course milestones, resources and assesment methods will be given during the first lecture. Special attention will be given to explaining student activities and assignments (oral presentations in class, small group project and book review, with instructions on how to organise the group project, how to write the project report, how to prepare for a class presentation and how to write the book review). So come well prepared (remembering to check resources and instructions already present on Virtuale) and ready to ask all the questions you want to ask!

PLEASE NOTE:

Students with a disability or specific learning disabilities (DSA) who are requesting academic adjustments or compensatory tools are invited to communicate their needs to the teaching staff in order to properly address them and agree on the appropriate measures with the competent bodies.

Assessment methods

General Assessment for the course will be based on:

- (1) 1 written piece: a 3,000 words essay on a subject chosen by the student in consultation with the teacher (the teacher will always be there to help at all stages of the essay design and writing-up, so do not hesitate to ask). The subject has to be directly relevant (empirically and theoretically) to the Anthropology of Migration course. The essay has to be submitted 7 days (at the latest) before the date of the oral examination. Late submissions without justification will be penalised.

- (2) The oral examination, during which the student will be tested on knowledge acquired through the lectures (slides and notes) and the readings (as specified above, students have to read 3 readings for each themed lecture).

- (3) Active participation in class, especially by volunteering to give student presentations after each lecture (one 15 min. presentation on one chosen reading from the bibliography for the day, with optional slides) but also by engaging orally with fellow students and the teacher in spontaneous group discussions. Active, spontaneous participation will win extra points in the final mark for the course.

Registration for oral presentations will be voluntary and open to all from the week before the start of the course, via a Google Doc accessible only to registered students on Virtuale.

The reading list provided is intended as a guide, and students are urged to explore work published in major anthropology journals, such as Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, American Anthropologist, American Ethnologist, Cultural Anthropology, Social Anthropology, Current Anthropology, Migration and Society, Comparative Migration Studies, and online blogs: https://footnotesblog.com/, https://anthrodendum.org/, https://culanth.org/about, http://fieldworkinitiative.org/.

I am pasting below a general description of Unibo's marking system which students will find on all courses' webpages for reference:

'The ability of the student to achieve a coherent and comprehensive understanding of the topics addressed by the course, to critically assess them and to use an appropriate language will be evaluated with the highest grades (A = 27-30 con lode).

A predominantly mnemonic acquisition of the course's contents together with gaps and deficiencies in terms of language, critical and/or logical skills will result in grades ranging from good (B = 24-26) to satisfactory (C = 21-23).

A low level of knowledge of the course’s contents together with gaps and deficienciesin terms of language, critical and/or logical skills will be considered as ‘barely passing' (D = 18-20) or result in a fail grading (F).'

Teaching tools

PLEASE NOTE:

Students with a disability or specific learning disabilities (DSA) who are requesting academic adjustments or compensatory tools are invited to communicate their needs to the teaching staff in order to properly address them and agree on the appropriate measures with the competent bodies.

Office hours

See the website of Vanessa Grotti