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https://AURELIOMADRID.wordpress.com/2012/09/23/t-gondii-bastet-and-actor-network-theory/
That the opportunistic parasite Toxoplasma-gondii, the ancient Egyptian cat goddess Bastet, and the ideas that inform Bruno Latour’s Actor-network theory (ANT) all exist independently are not contested subjects. That they are unified has yet to be examined. The goal of this paper will be to situate these three seemingly disparate phenomena into an interactive web of possibilities that will prove useful for the disciplines of science, social science, mythology, philosophy, and other fields of study. Our first step will be to examine Kevin T. Lafferty’s research on the eco-science of toxoplasmosis[1] in human agents and its cultural outcomes. Lafferty’s work will lay the ground for a complimentary analysis of an ancient Egyptian dynamic that encouraged the (then unknown) proliferation of the parasite into the people’s daily and spiritual life of upper and lower Egypt within the religio/mythic power symbolized in the guise of the female cat deity Bastet[2]. We will then conclude by demonstrating how the microbial and mythic agents (yes, toxoplasma-gondii is considered a non-human agent with agency, along with cats, humans, and Bastet etc.) will be placed into a non-hierarchical perspective of ANT by way of Bruno Latour’s work concerning science, people, microbes, technology (mummification) which is an un-stratified way of understanding the relationships between all the actors/actants involved.
In a 2006 paper Lafferty proposes the idea that the parasite Toxoplasma-gondii has influenced human culture. Lafferty quotes J.P. Webster explaining that the parasite promotes the risk behavior of affected rodents “T. gondii appears to manipulate rodent behavior in sophisticated ways that would increase transmission to domestic cats” (2749). The infected rodents are said to engage in high risk activities so as to get caught and eaten by the cat, thus positioning the parasite in the body of its desired carrier. Felines are the ideal host for the parasite, but humans can become infected due to their proximity to cats as house pets, companions, and domestic pest control. “The reproductive phase of this protozoan lives in the cells that line the intestine of a feline. [And can] infect [other] cats or encyst in the brain and other tissues of a wide range of warm-blooded vertebrates, including humans” (J.K.A. Beverly qtd. in Lafferty 2749). Once the parasite has infected a person, traceable personality traits are said to take place with noted variance between the genders, “For instance, in infected women, intelligence, superego strength […] and affectothymia[3] […] are higher, while infected men have lower intelligence, superego strength and novelty-seeking […]; both infected men and women have higher levels of guilt-proneness […]” (Flegr [sic] and Hrdy [sic], qtd. in Lafferty 2749). Because T. gondii affects men and women in these gender specific ways, using the cultural research of Hofstede & McCrae, Lafferty ‘predicts’ the outcome of “…higher aggregate neuroticism[4]. Aspects of human culture associated with neuroticism are male control, materialism, rules and structure [and] that T. gondii could increase the cultural dimensions of ‘masculine’ sex roles and uncertainty avoidance” (2551).
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