ABSTRACT
Despite the attention immunity has received in socio-cultural analysis, there is a paucity of inquiry on how immunity is lived in everyday contexts. This situation is partly attributable to the emphases in social analysis on biological philosophy, science and technology, and genealogy. Another reason is that immunity is typically folded into its technologies, for example, vaccines, antiretrovirals used for HIV, and antibiotics, all of which are extensively researched but address immunity only obliquely, if at all. Chapter 6, therefore, considers in some depth how everyday citizens narrate their experiences of immunity, with particular reference to antibiotics. It explores what immunity means to individuals, and how it draws together for them biological existence, the life course, and affective experience. The narratives are shown to echo consumer culture and the genealogy of immunity in the philosophy of self, property, milieu interieur, and possessive individualism. The chapter shows how people reflecting on immunity position themselves as knowing consumers who subscribe to immunity as self-defence but who are also aware of other framings, including the idea that immunity depends on traffic with the other.
