Data Bites Man: The Production of Malaria by Technology

Malaria surveillance is a practice concerned with collection and analysis of data. This paper presents an ethnographical account of an international team of researchers producing data about malaria in the Zanzibar archipelago. We show that malaria is increasingly constituted by data, and inextricably interwoven with the practices of data workers using ICT tools. Through the practices we document here malaria: 1) becomes a problem to be managed by asymptomatic, as well as symptomatic individuals, 2) increases its geographical incidence through surveillance data and articulation work, and 3) becomes more certain, through coordination mechanisms enabled by ICT. As electronic data, malaria builds and mobilizes diverse human, organizational, and infrastructural worlds around it, who must now be dedicated to its production, management, and care.