Racism and Vibrio cholerae: A Sociogenic Approach to Understanding Pathogenicity

Abstract

After its pandemic debut in 1817, cholera became the most feared disease of the nineteenth century. Its source, a toxigenic bacterium: Vibrio cholerae. There is little coincidence that the prolific and far-reaching spread of this diarrheal scourge emerged during a period of rapid globalization and concentrated along routes of trade, centers of industrialization, and outposts of imperial occupation. In the United States and Europe, the confluence of emerging germ theory, epidemiological science, and racial hierarchies located vibrios in contaminated water and communities contaminated by immigration, destitution, and moral depravity. Identifying the environmental factors promoting V. cholerae’s transmission spurred many early public health efforts aimed at surveillance, sanitation, and drinking-water infrastructure. As transmission plummeted in the West, the racially-coded presumptions about cholera persisted, becoming a disease of poverty, conflict, and post-disaster—but only in predominantly nonwhite countries. Using the case of the novel 2010-2019 cholera epidemic in Haiti, this article examines the historically mediated co-creation of V. cholerae’s pathogenicity as situated in a particular and racialized entanglement of microbe and human—the only known natural host for cholera vibrios. Pathogenicity—or a germ’s disease-causing potential—hinges on the relationship between microbial virulence and host susceptibility. Drawing on the concept of sociogeny, I consider cholera as a socially produced phenomenon with presumed natural linkages to certain environments and nonwhite populations, and how such narratives in turn shape vibrio biologies. Combining the sociogenic principle with STS theorizations of disease, I find that V. cholerae carries multiple pathogenicities in relation to human individuals, populations, and nation-states. Centering the microbe as a key actor in the codetermination of its enteric environment highlights its role in humans’ negotiations of power.