Maraa

Delves into the relationship between war and disease, focusing on Colombian armed conflict and the skin disease known as cutaneous leishmaniasis. Cutaneous leishmaniasis, transmitted by female sandflies, produces skin lesions of varying size and shape. In Colombia, the insect vector of the disease is native to the same forested environments that have served as the main stage for one of the longest and most violent wars in Latin American history. As a result, the populations most affected by leishmaniasis in Colombia are members of the state army and nonstate armed groups. Lina Pinto-Garca explores how leishmaniasis and the armed conflict are inextricably connected and mutually reinforcing. Maraa means tangle in Spanish but is also commonly used in Colombia to name the entangled greenery, braided lianas, and dense foliage that characterize the tropical forests where leishmaniasis transmission typically occurs. Pinto-Garca argues that leishmaniasis and the war are not merely linked but enmaraadas to each other through narratives, technologies, and practices produced by the state, medicine, biomedical research, and the armed conflict itself. All told, Maraa is a passionate study of how war has shaped the production of scientific knowledge about leishmaniasis and access to its treatments in Colombia.