“Its Hand around My Throat”. The Social Rendering of Borrelia

Abstract

This paper builds on biomedical and anthropological discourses of microbial agency to explore the important opportunities this discourse offers medicine, politics, anthropology, and patients. “Borrelia burgdorferi”, often termed “the Great Imitator”, is an ideal candidate for this discussion as it reveals how difficult it is to speak about Lyme disease without engaging with microbial agency. Based on 12-months research with Lyme disease patients and clinicians in Scotland, this paper offers a social rendering of the bacteria that reveals epistemologies of illness not available in medical accounts: the impact of social and psychological symptoms such as body dysmorphia, depression, shame, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide-related deaths on patients’ illness narratives. Divorcing agency from the bacteria silences these important patient narratives with the consequence of a limited medical and social understanding of the signification of Lyme disease and the holistic methods needed for treatment. This paper furthermore argues that the inclusion of patient worldings of Borrelia acting in the medical renderings offers a democratic determination of what the illness is. Finally, building on Giraldo Herrera and Cadena, I argue for a decolonization of Borrelia, exploring how the pluriverse both takes the epistemologies of patients seriously and reveals medical equivocation.