Universität zu Köln

Lacan, Léa ORCID: 0000-0001-5475-6645 (2026). Flies, pathogens, and wildlife. Tsetse stories and disease vulnerabilities between eradication and coexistence in Zambia. Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space. pp. 1-22. SAGE Publications. ISSN 2514-8486

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Abstract

Tsetse flies and wildlife-disease reservoirs have long been targeted for spreading trypanosomiasis, an infectious parasitic disease that affects multiple organs in humans and livestock. In Zambia, large-scale conservation promotes closer coexistence between people, livestock and wildlife, renewing concerns: how can people live with dreadful pathogens? This article explores the shifting stories that cast tsetse flies variously as epidemic villains, guardians of wilderness, and awkward neighbours. It aims to unravel the imaginaries, technological and spatial assemblages underlying tsetse stories to understand how they shape disease control and encounters with tsetse. Drawing on archives, entomological literature and interviews with local farmers in southwestern Zambia, the study moves between science, fiction, and local narratives to examine tsetse stories of the 20th and 21st centuries in Zambia (and beyond). It highlights how these stories shape the fears and possibilities of living with tsetse, between eradication and coexistence. Overall, the article shows that vulnerabilities to trypanosomiasis are produced and responded to in political assemblages, and asks: what kinds of multispecies worlds do we want to narrate and inhabit?

Item Type:	Article
Creators:	Creators Email ORCID ORCID Put Code Lacan, Léa llacan@uni-koeln.de https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5475-6645 UNSPECIFIED
URN:	urn:nbn:de:hbz:38-812551
Identification Number:	10.1177/25148486261441883
Journal or Publication Title:	Environment and Planning E: Nature and Space
Page Range:	pp. 1-22
Number of Pages:	22
Date:	2026
Publisher:	SAGE Publications
ISSN:	2514-8486
Language:	English
Faculty:	Central Institutions / Interdisciplinary Research Centers Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Divisions:	Global South Studies Center Faculty of Arts and Humanities > Fächergruppe 4: Außereuropäische Sprachen, Kulturen und Gesellschaften > Institut für Ethnologie
Subjects:	Customs, etiquette, folklore Civic and landscape art
Related URLs:	['eprint_fieldopt_related_url_type_publication' not defined]
Funders:	ERC Advanced Grant
Projects:	Rewilding the Anthropocene
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	http://kups.ub.uni-koeln.de/id/eprint/81255