ABSTRACT
The eradication of malaria is a long-standing quest in global public health. This chapter discusses the development of a malaria vaccine, the rise of malaria drug-tolerant parasites, as well as vernacular logics of negotiating partial immunities in order to investigate the survival strategies and practices of humans and parasites alike. It argues that interrogating malaria policies and ecological disease dynamics through the notion of immunity draws attention to the 'folded geographies' of the three species that constitute malaria – to the complex topologies at play in the entanglements of humans, mosquitoes and parasites. The chapter also introduces how the concept of immunity has shifted in immunology from understandings of cells at war to complex and non-linear relations between different types of organisms. It describes visions of vaccination, mutating and moving parasites, as well as how humans acquire partial immunity to malaria. Immunology, on other hand, has moved on from war metaphors towards emphasising the flexibility and complexity of immune reactions.
