The Experimental Hut: Hosting Vectors

Abstract

In southeast Tanzania, ten canvass huts raised on wooden foundations occupy a plot of cleared rice field. Designed to simulate malaria transmission on the domestic scale, the experimental hut is constructed in the fashion of indigenous homes (complete with villagers, paid to spend the night) but is structurally modified to render mosquito behaviours visible. The experiment’s domestic camouflage provides the setting for multiple, and reciprocal, hostings: between parasite, mosquito and man, and between villagers, volunteers and scientists. This paper explores the valences of hospitality when the ‘home’ becomes a site of experimentation, and the cosmopoltian encounters these experiments entail.