Jocelyn Lim Chua

Anthropology has shown how humans and nonhuman animals are deeply interconnected. This project builds on this work, as well as recent anthropological approaches to pharmaceuticals, through an ethnography of human self-medication with veterinary antibiotics. Readily accessible without prescription, aquarium fish antibiotics specifically have gained popularity as an alternative to human-grade antibiotics among individuals who mistrust or lack access to formal healthcare systems. Survivalists, “doomsday preppers,” and the uninsured are sharing advice via social media on how to self-treat infections with fish antibiotics, creating informal networks of populist medical expertise. Meanwhile, these practices raise public health concerns. Through interviews with rural residents in North Carolina and social media influencers who promote the use of fish antibiotics, as well as ethnographic observation with academic researchers studying their chemical profiles and public health implications, this project asks: Why and how do people self-medicate with veterinary antibiotics? How are these medicines shaped by human-animal relations in rural NC? How do social media influencers and researchers enact and communicate expertise about fish antibiotics—as chemicals, medicines, and public health threats? Building on anthropological work on multispecies entanglements, trust and mistrust, and pharmaceuticals, this project theorizes the interspecies nature of pharmaceutical life amid deepening institutional mistrust.