Paper long abstract:

In the field of clinical microbiology, the databases of pathogens and their associated transmission events are undergoing new mapping techniques providing specific (and at times beautiful) visualisations of mobility. In the case of 'bugs', mobility is at once evolutionary and geographical, depicting stories of lineage, contamination and distances travelled. Mediated by the application of whole genome sequencing these visualisations impart identities and histories that for the first time link bug with host in a manner flagged up for its' potential clinical utility. Through extensive ethnographic and historical work exploring the practices of translational and implementation work amongst a team developing whole genome sequencing of pathogens for clinical application, this paper gives a conceptual nod to Hannah Landecker (2005). Where bug and host have often been separated, a focus on the technique of pathogen genomics, illuminates the various ways that biological identities are developed, imagined, and indeed, visualised. I will also describe how the translational imperative and its visual outworking in this case, tell us something about contemporary attitudes to dirt and purity, contamination and containment and the cultural power of place and mobility.