Making sense of snakebite: the place of biological toxins in social scientific analyses of toxicity

Abstract Through an ethnographic study of snakebite governance in Kerala, India, this article argues that social scientific theories of toxicity elucidate the biosocial dimensions of snakebite envenomation (SBE). SBE is a medical emergency engendered by the toxins in a venomous snakebite. By drawing upon work from the social sciences and humanities that conceives of the material and semiotic dimensions of biological toxins (such as venom and poison) and synthetic toxicants (such as industrial contaminants) in an integrated frame of toxicity, this article demonstrates how these theories clarify the structural drivers, indeterminacies, and multispecies health impacts that characterise SBE’s manifestation as a public health issue in Kerala. It thus asserts the value of integrating insights drawn from analyses of toxicity across biological and synthetic molecules, responding to recent influential reviews that omit biological toxins from this frame due to their supposed natural genesis and constrained circulation and harms. This article consequently argues that scholars should avoid reproducing rigid taxonomic distinctions between ‘natural’ toxins and ‘synthetic’ toxicants, as insights drawn from across classes of molecules and mobilised within a unified heuristic of toxicity elucidate the structural conditions and localised experiences of toxin and toxicant exposure.