ABSTRACT
Parasites have long been disdained as a drain to be eliminated and eradicated. Helminthic therapy—the use of parasites to treat autoimmune diseases—seeks to change this. Helminthic therapy transforms the parasite from bane to boon, from a pathogenic scourge to a valued resource to be bought, sold, and researched by a growing network of biohackers, health activists, and medical scientists. Yet, this is not a simple story of pure natures newly commodified. This novel bioeconomy is both contested and multiple, engaging with parasites not only as commodities but also as not-yet-but-soon-to-be-commodities, as useful but not formally valued, as inconsequential, or as dangerous to profit. Drawing on qualitative interviews and digital ethnography and grounded in relational feminist and queer approaches to political economy, this chapter traces the ways in which parasites engender myriad forms of capitalist value and non-value. This approach illustrates how resource geographies and the worlds they engender are always multiple and never inevitable. They are pregnant with myriad possibilities and potential futures.
