Epidemic space

The aim of this article is to highlight the importance of 'spatiality' in understanding the materialization of risk society and cultivation of risk sensibilities. More specifically it provides a cultural analysis of pathogen virulence (as a social phenomenon) by means of tracing and mapping the spatial flows that operate in the uncharted zones between the microphysics of infection and the macrophysics of epidemics. It will be argued that epidemic space consists of three types of forces: the vector, the index and the vortex. It will draw on Latour's Actor Network Theory to argue that epidemic space is geared towards instability when the vortex (of expanding associations and concerns) displaces the index (of finding a single cause)