TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 87
As time went on, and Europeans' mobility across the Americas
increased,theythemselvescamein touchwithlocalecologiesthatwere
not amenable to their designs and in some case even proved to be
outrightdetrimentaltotheirhealth(diseaseecologies).Beforegoinginto
a detailed narration about some of these cases, in which local ecologies
turned out to be "repellant spaces" (Lefèbvre 163, 294), a brief aside is
necessary here in order to "provincialize" the Americas (if such a
proposal were possible). While it goes without saying that the human
cataclysm produced by the European advent in the hemisphere is in
manywayshistoricallyunique,wemustnotforgetthattheencounterof
human mobility with local disease ecologies produced material effects
also in other parts of the globe, for example in South East Asia, as the
recent incidence of smallpox and HIV-AIDS prove. Here as elsewhere,
considerations about the relative biological safety of spaces and places
wereweighedagainsteconomicinterestsorgeopoliticaldesiresandthen
entered into the calculus of EuroAmerican expansion across the globe.
Much of this is not a thing of the past, however. "[W]orld sectors of
biological and economic precarity" (Ahuja xii) are still very much with
us,astherecentEbolaepidemicinAfricademonstrated.^37
ConcerningthesituationintheUnitedStates,Iwanttodwellbriefly
on an example which is much less dramatic but can nonetheless
demonstrate how human mobility and the biology of the physical
environment are closely linked. My example here is the role played by
technical air conditioning in re-shaping the ecologies (but also the
economies) of the continental 48 States. Significantly, Gail Cooper, in
herAir-Conditioning America(1998), has read air conditioning as a
(^37) This renewed sense of precarity is reflected in professional and media
accounts: cf. United States. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.
"Texas Reports Positive Test for Ebola in a Health Care Worker."Center for
DiseaseControlPrevention. U.S.DepartmentofHealthandHumanServices,12
Oct.2014.Web.9Apr.2017.;Dahl,Melissa."EbolaFearsAreTriggeringMass
Hypochondria."NewYorkMagazine. NewYorkMediaLLC,3Dec.2016,Web.
9 Apr. 2017.; Voorhees, Josh. "Everything that Went Wrong in Dallas."Dallas
News.TheDallasMorningNewsInc.,16Oct.2016.Web.9Apr.2017.;Emily,
Jennifer. "Ebola Nurse Nina Pham Close to Settlement with Texas Health
Resources."DallasNews.TheDallasMorningNewsInc.,17Oct.2016.Web.9
Apr.2017.