TheMaterialismofBiologicalEncounters 89
Such associations were not only a medico-moral but also a broadly
cultural diagnosis. Assumptions of inferiority in health contexts and of
culpable neglect in these matters repeatedly punctuate 19th century
discourses, especially in the wake of Social Darwinist assumptions
about differential racial endowments of the West vis-à-vis "the rest."
From our disciplinary point of view these processes of attribution and
valuation can perhaps be best understood as part of a powerful cultural
imaginaryinwhichsomepartsoftheAmericanempirefigureashotbeds
of diseases exporting dangerous bodies, viral invaders to the United
States, a cultural pathology that is surfacing again in the post 9/11
contextofthe"waronterror."
Over the course of time, particular conjunctures of infection and
ecologyhaveinmaterialandimaginarywaysrepeatedlymarkedhuman
experience in and with the Americas. Probably the most critical site in
this regard is the Caribbean, particularly Saint-Domingue/Haiti
(Woertendyke 3-24). At this epicenter of multiple interethnic and
intercultural encounters,the differentialdistribution ofbiologicalrisk—
Africansallegedlyhavingamuchsmallersusceptibilitytolocal,vector-
borne diseases such as malaria—even came to attain geopolitical
repercussionswhenattemptsbytheFrenchandlatertheBritishtoquell
the Toussaint Louverture insurrection on Saint-Domingue faltered after
their armies had lost thousands of soldiers to the yellow fever that was
endemicthere.^39 BecausetheinteractionwithinaU.S.-Americancontext
between local disease ecologies and human mobility has been so
virulentintheCaribbean,thetwocasestudiespresentedbelowareboth
setinthismultiplydetermined,ifnotover-determined,geographicaland
geopoliticalspace.
In addition to the complex ethical questions involved, the argument
unfolded here also needs to face a theoretical challenge, even a double
one.First,inadiscussionofdiseasesandtheirsocialandculturalfallout
it is important to move beyond the fascination with singular,
(^39) Susan Buck-Morss even argues this defeat not only put an end to European
colonial aspirations on the island but also set the stage for the abolition of
slaveryinEngland(37).