Zoonotic diagrams: mastering and unsettling human‐animal relations

Abstract

This article approaches interspecies relations through an examination of the prevalent visual device employed in the representation of animal‐human infection in the life sciences: the zoonotic cycles diagram. After charting its emergence and development in the context of bubonic plague, I explore how this diagrammatic regime has been applied in two distinct practical contexts: a plague warning sign on the Grand Canyon National Park hiking trail; and the on‐line public information campaign launched by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the wake of the Ebola outbreak of 2014‐16. The article demonstrates the principal ontological and biopolitical operations of these diagrams, arguing that, far from simply summarizing epidemiological narratives of animal‐human infection, they function both as pilots of human mastery over human‐animal relations and as crucial sites of unsettlement for the latter.

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