Mosquitopia: The Place of Pests in a Healthy World

by Marcus Hall (Editor), Dan Tamïr (Editor)

Overview

This edited volume brings together natural scientists, social scientists and humanists to assess if (or how) we may begin to coexist harmoniously with the mosquito. The mosquito is humanity’s deadliest animal, killing over a million people each year by transmitting malaria, yellow fever, Zika and several other diseases. Yet of the 3,500 species of mosquito on Earth, only a few dozen of them are really dangerous—so that the question arises as to whether humans and their mosquito foe can learn to live peacefully with one another.

Chapters assess polarizing arguments for conserving and preserving mosquitoes, as well as for controlling and killing them, elaborating on possible consequences of both strategies. This book provides informed answers to the dual question: could we eliminate mosquitoes, and should we? Offering insights spanning the technical to the philosophical, this is the “go to” book for exploring humanity’s many relationships with the mosquito—which becomes a journey to finding better ways to inhabit the natural world.

Mosquitopia will be of interest to anyone wanting to explore dependencies between human health and natural systems, while offering novel perspectives to health planners, medical experts, environmentalists and animal rights advocates.

The Open Access version of this book, available at

http://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/e/9781003056034, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780367520052
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	09/02/2021
Series:	Routledge Environmental Humanities
Pages:	312
Product dimensions:	6.12(w) x 9.19(h) x (d)

About the Author

Marcus Hall is an environmental historian and professor at the University of Zurich. In exploring changing human relationships with the natural world, Hall has turned to such subjects as restoring, rewilding, invasive species, warfare, earth art, chronobiology, malaria, and parasites. His books include Earth Repair, Restoration and History, Crossing Mountains, and (with Marco Armiero) Nature and History in Modern Italy.

Dan Tamïr is environmental historian and research associate at the University of Zurich. His research examines the global circulation and the local adaptations of ideologies, species and resources. His current research focuses on the global political cooperation in targeting mosquito-borne diseases during the past century.

Table of Contents

List of figures viii

List of contributors xii

Foreword xvii

Part I Could We (Should We) Eliminate Mosquitoes? 1

1 Killing mosquitoes: Think before you swat Marcus Hall Dan Tamïr 3

2 The mosquito: An introduction Frances M. Hawkes Richard J. Hopkins 16

3 Understanding multispecies mobilities: From mosquito eradication to coexistence Uli Beisel Carsten Wergin 32

Part II Learning From Experience 47

4 The long arc of mosquito control James L.A. Webb, Jr. 49

5 Domesticated Mosquitoes: Colonization and the growth of mosquito habitats in North America Urmi Engineer Willoughby 61

6 Could we/should we eradicate mosquitoes?: The case of the yellow fever vector Nancy Leys Stepan 73

7 Fighting nuisance on the northern fringe: Controlling mosquitoes in Britain between the World Wars Peter Coates 87

Part III Know thy Enemy 107

8 The mosquito and malaria: Would mosquito control alone eliminate the disease? Willem Takken 109

9 Living with mosquitoes in disease-free contexts: Attitudes and perceptions of risk in English wetlands Adriana Ford Mary Gearey Tim G. Acott 123

10 AweWonderExcitement Kerry Morrison Helmut Lemke 144

Part IV Know Thyself 163

11 Enacting politics with mosquitoes: Beyond eradication and control Jean Segata 165

12 Eradication against ambivalence Alex Nading 183

13 The innocent mosquito?: The environmental ethics of mosquito eradication Anna Wienhues 195

Part V Improving Human-Mosquito Relationships 211

14 Mosquito control: Success, failure and expectations in the context of arbovirus expansion and emergence Isabelle Dusfour Sarah C. Chaney 213

15 Designer mosquitoes?: Prospects and precautions of genome-edited insects for public health Ramya M. Rajagopalan 234

16 The Mosquitome: A new frontier for sustainable vector control Frederic Simard 248

17 Mosquito Utopias and dystopias: A dispatch from the front lines Indra Vythilingam 261

Afterword 275

Index 284

Editorial Reviews

This book is a fascinating and thought-provoking discussion provided by a diverse array of authors with unique viewpoints and observations regarding the mosquito-human interaction while we, as humans, contemplate our place within a Mosquitopia.” 

James Cilek, Medical Entomologist

 

“The collection as a whole is indispensable for anyone with a scholarly interest in mosquitoes, mosquito-borne disease, and mosquito control.”

John McNeill, author of Mosquito Empires: Ecology and War in the Greater Caribbean, 1620-1914

From the Publisher