Abstract

Interdisciplinary research on zoonotic disease has tended to focus on ‘risk’ of disease transmission as a conceptual common denominator. With reference to endemic zoonoses at the livestock–human interface, we argue for considering a broader sweep of disciplinary insights from anthropology and other social sciences in interdisciplinary dialogue, in particular cross-cultural perspectives on human–animal engagement. We consider diverse worldviews where human–animal encounters are perceived of in terms of the kinds of social relations they generate, and the notion of culture is extended to the ‘natural’ world. This has implications for how animals are valued, treated and prioritized. Thinking differently with and about animals and about species' boundaries could enable ways of addressing zoonotic diseases which have closer integration with people's own cultural norms. If we can bring this kind of knowledge into One Health debates, we find ourselves with a multiplicity of worldviews, where bounded categories such as human:animal and nature:culture cannot be assumed. This might in turn influence our scientific ways of seeing our own disciplinary cultures, and generate novel ways of understanding zoonoses and constructing solutions.This article is part of the themed issue ‘One Health for a changing world: zoonoses, ecosystems and human well-being’.

Highlights

  • The ‘One World One Health’ agenda stresses the interconnections between humans, animals and the environment and calls for integration and collaboration between veterinary and human medicine [1]

  • We have argued for bringing a broader sweep of disciplinary insights from anthropology and other social sciences to bear in interdisciplinary conceptualization of neglected zoonotic diseases and of related One Health responses

  • With a focus on interdisciplinary research on endemic zoonoses in livestock, we argue that social science contributions have assisted in contextualizing risk, introducing understandings of the broader drivers of zoonotic disease and of the context of responses

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Summary

Introduction

The ‘One World One Health’ agenda stresses the interconnections between humans, animals and the environment and calls for integration and collaboration between veterinary and human medicine [1]. The body of scholarship on human – animal relations extends a well-established tradition in anthropology that, by drawing on comparative ethnographic perspectives across cultures, questions the universality of conceptual divisions presumed in Western thought, most fundamentally (and most pertinent to this discussion) that of ‘nature’ versus ‘culture’ [9] Drawing these perspectives into interdisciplinary work could productively unsettle the categories implied by ‘One Health’ frameworks and the boundaries readily drawn between humans, animals and the environment. An anthropological critique of categories assumed in Western thought, and recognition of the value of understanding human–animal relations as situated in a broader social field, could open up fresh exchanges across the disciplines involved in One Health agendas, and productively destabilize assumptions It could transform how the interests of people in research sites are understood and enrich researchers’ engagements with them, advancing a shared agenda for the prevention and control of zoonotic diseases, both in outbreak situations and when addressing neglected endemic zoonoses

Interdisciplinary research on zoonoses: understanding ‘risk’
Human–animal relations and expanded social worlds
A multi-species perspective and zoonotic diseases
Livestock–human relations: the example of cattle in east and southern Africa
Livestock–human relations and understanding neglected endemic zoonoses
Views from many worlds
Findings
Conclusion

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