Aníbal Arregui: "Quantum pigs? Schrödingerian necropolitics and ontological superpositions..."

Quantum pigs? Schrödingerian necropolitics and ontological superpositions in a more-than-human Barcelona

Abstract

Ecological, social and sanitary crises reveal that current ways of thinking about modern cities may be becoming obsolete. In this presentation, I draw on the ongoing case of an African Swine Fever epidemic in Barcelona to show that, in a sort of “Schrödingerian” necropolitical turn, local wild boars might be dead and alive at the same time. Despite the violence involved both in the lethal spread of the virus and the biosecurity measures to contain it, I situate the fate of these “quantum pigs” in the wider context of experimental forms of human-wild boar interaction that have always drawn on certain ontological superpositions. Far from constituting extraordinary objects of theoretical speculation, quantum pigs tell us about quite concrete possibilities for imagining a more-than-human, non-deterministic city.

Bio

Anibal Arregui’s work is situated at the intersection of the anthropology of…