ABSTRACT
The United States’ Surgeon General’s claim in 1967 that ‘it is time to close the book on infectious disease’ is held up as a canonical moment because, in retrospect, it actually marked a turning point, upsurge in infectious diseases. The resurgence of infectious disease is commonly explained by those working on EID by invoking 'globalization':'global factors' are cast as having intensified the risks of bringing people into contact with unfamiliar microbes and of facilitating the dissemination of familiar ones. As the opening quote from an early 1990s report on infectious disease within the USA suggests, what has become apparent are the limitations of successfully deploying familiar public health strategies that rely on national border protection as a means of safeguarding the nation. Neither approach has moved far beyond adopting top-down, disempowering medical and public health practices, strategies which fail to start from a point of understanding and engagement with the specific social practices through which infectious disease is transmitted, contained.
