Luísa Reis Castro
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anthrobite.bsky.social
Luísa Reis Castro
@anthrobite.bsky.social
4K followers 1.2K following 320 posts
Anthropologist of science, health & the environment in an unequal 🌍 | thinks a lot about Brasil & bugs 🦟 🦠

Assistant Prof at the University of Southern California; before MIT, Maastricht Univ, UFMG

In a love-hate relationship with Los Angeles – ela/she
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anthrobite.bsky.social
Luísa Reis Castro @anthrobite.bsky.social · Aug 6
🦟 Can the Mosquito Bite? 🦟
The Multispecies Transmutation of Wolbachia Mosquitoes as Biotechnologies of Epidemic Control in Rio de Janeiro

How does the use of a bacterium in vector control reconfigure biopolitical relations?

New article at @estsjournal.bsky.social! #STSsky #AnthroSky
Print Screen: Can the Mosquito Bite? The Multispecies Transmutation of Wolbachia Mosquitoes as Biotechnologies of Epidemic Control in Rio de Janeiro ABSTRACT A bite from the Aedes aegypti mosquito can transmit pathogenic viruses such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. While public health campaigns have historically focused on eliminating this vector species, a project in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, proposes to release A. aegypti carrying the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia. This microbe, passed from female A. aegypti to their progeny, would hinder viral transmission, making the bite less of a threat and promoting a more convivial coexistence. In releasing Wolbachia mosquitoes, project proponents presented their strategy as a solution for disease control that harnessed “nature,” instead of working against it. By juxtaposing historical accounts and ethnographic research in Rio with descriptions of biological processes, this article investigates how the microbe-mosquito dyad was turned into a biotechnology of epidemic control. Proponents of the Wolbachia project hoped that a change within multispecies relations—the novel human-bacterium-mosquito relationship—would change other multispecies relations—the historically constituted human-virus-mosquito relationships in Rio and beyond. This shift, which I term “multispecies transmutation,” highlights how relational alterations in both biologies and socialities created a new life-form (“Wolbachia mosquitoes”) and a new form of life (of multispecies coexistence). By tracing the more-than-human biopolitical arrangements put forward by the project, this article explores the recalibration of technoscientific solutions to global environmental health concerns. Multispecies transmutation offers a new framework for understanding the management of multispecies relations, showing how techniques of governance can target not individuals or populations per se, but rather interspecies connections.
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
kendrawrites.com
I knew it would take less than a day for a tiktok dj to make something.
November 5, 2025 at 12:13 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
tomphillips.bsky.social
“It’s so sad to see what’s happening in our communities. It’s terrible what the people who live there are going through … Those who live in war zones will understand this pain, this despair and this revolt.”
Thousands join protests in Rio favela after deadliest ever police raid
Demonstrators demand inquiry after operation on Tuesday in which at least 121 people were killed
www.theguardian.com
November 1, 2025 at 10:30 AM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
jackiantonovich.bsky.social
One of the most important things I teach when I teach about the history of the FDA is how supplements are not monitored and tested like drugs are. They rely on self or 3rd party regulation, which often fails in so many ways.
paris.nyc paris martineau @paris.nyc · 27d
my latest investigation for @consumerreports.org is based on months of reporting and 60+ lab tests of leading protein supplements

we found that most protein powders and shakes have more lead in one serving than our experts say is safe to have in a day (🧵)

www.consumerreports.org/lead/protein...
Protein Powders and Shakes Contain High Levels of Lead - Consumer Reports
CR tests of 23 popular protein powders and shakes found that most contain high levels of lead.
www.consumerreports.org
October 14, 2025 at 8:58 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
cecillia.com.br
ICE deteve a diretora brasileira durante entrevista para obtenção do green card: "Ao final do que nos disseram ter sido uma reunião bem-sucedida, o policial usou a desculpa de uma copiadora quebrada para enganá-la e fazê-la se afastar do nosso advogado. Uma vez separada de seu adv, ela foi presa."
billwearsties.bsky.social Bill Wolkoff @billwearsties.bsky.social · Sep 29
Finally Barbara’s story is getting national attention. New update from her gofundme: she is now in a Louisiana ICE processing center after three days of travel in shackles. She’s sleeping on the floor and has been denied care for her medical condition.
September 29, 2025 at 8:22 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
envhistnow.bsky.social
Can you keep us sustainable? EHN is volunteer-run, but we need to cover our costs for hosting the website. If you value what we do, chip in $6 or whatever you can below ko-fi.com/envhistnow
September 17, 2025 at 5:48 PM
anthrobite.bsky.social
#AcademicSky #AnthroSky 👇

I just deleted my account...
hystericalblkns.bsky.social Ordinary Notes @hystericalblkns.bsky.social · Sep 17
If you’re on academia dot edu, let me suggest that you strongly consider deleting your account.
The new TOC from academia dot edu. By creating an Account with Academia.edu, you grant us a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable license, permission, and consent for Academia.edu to use your Member Content and your personal information (including, but not limited to, your name, voice, signature, photograph, likeness, city, institutional affiliations, citations, mentions, publications, and areas of interest) in any manner, including for the purpose of advertising, selling, or soliciting the use or purchase of Academia.edu's Services.
September 17, 2025 at 9:21 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
erikahilton.bsky.social
🚨 URGENTE

A Câmara pode votar hoje a PEC DA BLINDAGEM, uma proposta que serve pra impedir que políticos corruptos sejam presos.

👉🏽 Também chamada de PEC DA BANDIDAGEM, ela determina que deputados só poderão ser investigados pela Polícia com autorização dos PRÓPRIOS DEPUTADOS em VOTAÇÃO SECRETA. +👇🏽
September 16, 2025 at 6:38 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
beatrizdiniz.bsky.social
Abertura do Jornal Nacional pra colecionar
"A história do Brasil tem a primeira condenação de um ex-presidente da república por tentativa de golpe de Estado"
September 11, 2025 at 10:57 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
cristianfarias.com
Justice Sotomayor, once again, get to the heart of the matter here:

"We should not have to live in a country where the Government can seize anyone who looks Latino, speaks Spanish, and appears to work a low wage job."
mjsdc.bsky.social Mark Joseph Stern @mjsdc.bsky.social · Sep 8
BREAKING: By an apparent 6–3 vote, the Supreme Court halts an injunction that had prevented immigration agents from racially profiling Latinos in central California.

Sotomayor, dissenting, says the decision is "unconscionably irreconcilable with our nation's constitutional guarantees."
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/26085894-25a169-order/
September 8, 2025 at 4:09 PM
anthrobite.bsky.social
Lecturer in Nature, Environment and Society #STSsky
About the role The postholder will be expected to develop a research programme in areas relevant to Science and Technology Studies, with a particular focus on nature- and environment-related subjects. For the purposes of this position, nature and environment may be construed liberally to include, but not be limited to, natural resources, human and more-than-human relationship, humans and other animals, the built environment, environmental history, environmental knowledge, climate change, environmental degradation, biodiversity loss, sustainability, all approached from an STS perspective. Applications from scholars with a focus on the Global South are especially welcome. This is a 100% FTE appointment starting in January 2026 until 31 July 2028.
September 4, 2025 at 8:13 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
economist.com
Brazil offers a lesson in democracy to an America that is becoming more corrupt, protectionist and authoritarian econ.st/4peBqLR
August 28, 2025 at 11:47 AM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
lolennui.bsky.social
So many adults have to fail a child before he ends up 10 years old telling CNN about the mass shooting he lived through this morning
August 27, 2025 at 9:09 PM
anthrobite.bsky.social
#STSsky
August 14, 2025 at 1:09 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
kopyor.bsky.social
We had a lot of fun writing this! It’s a nice distillation of what we’ve learned over the past three years editing American Ethnologist, and how we have applied our vision for it. Link in 🧵below.
#Anthropology #AnthroSky #publishing #PeerReview #academia
amethno.bsky.social American Ethnological Society // American Ethnologist (journal) @amethno.bsky.social · Aug 3
📢📢📢 New Editorial Alert 📢📢📢

American Ethnologist editors lift the lid on the ‘black box’ of journal submission...

An Editorial Insight: Know your Anthro journals! Read the last few issues to get a sense of AE’s style, how theory and ethnography work together to propel the argument.
August 6, 2025 at 11:25 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
sanders.senate.gov
18,500 children have been killed by the Israeli military in Gaza.

Despite these war crimes, the US has provided more than $22 BILLION for the war.

Our taxpayer dollars are being used to starve children, bomb schools & gun down hungry people as they wait for aid.
August 7, 2025 at 5:59 PM
anthrobite.bsky.social
I should add that this research was only possible thanks to funding from @ssrc.org's International Diss. Research Fellowship (now defunct), NSF’s Anthro Diss Research Improvement Grant (status: ???) & @wennergrenorg.bsky.social's Diss Fieldwork Grant (the last one standing).

Research needs funding!
anthrobite.bsky.social Luísa Reis Castro @anthrobite.bsky.social · Aug 6
🦟 Can the Mosquito Bite? 🦟
The Multispecies Transmutation of Wolbachia Mosquitoes as Biotechnologies of Epidemic Control in Rio de Janeiro

How does the use of a bacterium in vector control reconfigure biopolitical relations?

New article at @estsjournal.bsky.social! #STSsky #AnthroSky
August 7, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
shobitap.org
Join @sthv.bsky.social next June for the 2026 STS summer school! Esp for early career researchers, it will include seminars, workshops, and keynotes to advance research/professional careers. Asia-Pacific scholars preferred. (I'll be a keynote instructor!) Apply by Dec 10.

Please circulate widely!
Science, Technology, & Human Values STS School
www.sthvschool.org
August 5, 2025 at 12:29 PM
anthrobite.bsky.social
🦟 Can the Mosquito Bite? 🦟
The Multispecies Transmutation of Wolbachia Mosquitoes as Biotechnologies of Epidemic Control in Rio de Janeiro

How does the use of a bacterium in vector control reconfigure biopolitical relations?

New article at @estsjournal.bsky.social! #STSsky #AnthroSky
Print Screen: Can the Mosquito Bite? The Multispecies Transmutation of Wolbachia Mosquitoes as Biotechnologies of Epidemic Control in Rio de Janeiro ABSTRACT A bite from the Aedes aegypti mosquito can transmit pathogenic viruses such as dengue, Zika, and chikungunya. While public health campaigns have historically focused on eliminating this vector species, a project in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, proposes to release A. aegypti carrying the intracellular bacterium Wolbachia. This microbe, passed from female A. aegypti to their progeny, would hinder viral transmission, making the bite less of a threat and promoting a more convivial coexistence. In releasing Wolbachia mosquitoes, project proponents presented their strategy as a solution for disease control that harnessed “nature,” instead of working against it. By juxtaposing historical accounts and ethnographic research in Rio with descriptions of biological processes, this article investigates how the microbe-mosquito dyad was turned into a biotechnology of epidemic control. Proponents of the Wolbachia project hoped that a change within multispecies relations—the novel human-bacterium-mosquito relationship—would change other multispecies relations—the historically constituted human-virus-mosquito relationships in Rio and beyond. This shift, which I term “multispecies transmutation,” highlights how relational alterations in both biologies and socialities created a new life-form (“Wolbachia mosquitoes”) and a new form of life (of multispecies coexistence). By tracing the more-than-human biopolitical arrangements put forward by the project, this article explores the recalibration of technoscientific solutions to global environmental health concerns. Multispecies transmutation offers a new framework for understanding the management of multispecies relations, showing how techniques of governance can target not individuals or populations per se, but rather interspecies connections.
August 6, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
joseacanada.bsky.social
Out now! With Salla Sariola and Matthäus Rest we argue for a more situated social analysis of microbes in our introduction to a thematic collection @estsjournal.bsky.social with fantastic contributions by @anthrobite.bsky.social @heymayahey.bsky.social A.Butcher, R.Soncco. L.Whiteley, V.Koski-Karell
Situating Microbes Within Complex Ecologies | Engaging Science, Technology, and Society
estsjournal.org
August 5, 2025 at 9:17 AM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
ninalakhani.bsky.social
New from @michaelfakhri.bsky.social
‘Israel has built the most efficient starvation machine you can imagine. So while it’s always shocking to see people being starved, no one should act surprised. All the information has been out in the open since early 2024.’
www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
August 4, 2025 at 3:57 PM
anthrobite.bsky.social
Lorena grandona!

Brasillll!!! 🇧🇷🇧🇷🇧🇷 #CopaAmerica
August 3, 2025 at 12:04 AM
anthrobite.bsky.social
É emoção demais esse jogo...
kermit the frog is looking at a green object
ALT: kermit the frog is looking at a green object
media.tenor.com
August 2, 2025 at 11:50 PM
anthrobite.bsky.social
Gooool!
August 2, 2025 at 9:54 PM
Reposted by Luísa Reis Castro
veenadubal.bsky.social
The “deal” that Brown made with the Trump admin is much more extreme than is being reported. It includes government oversight of course evaluations and no barrier to government interference in faculty hiring.

Read it for yourself here:

www.brown.edu/sites/defaul...
www.brown.edu
July 30, 2025 at 11:46 PM