Participation as a political arena: plural knowledges and critical cartography in One Health approach

Journal title SALUTE E SOCIETÀ
Author/s Concetta Russo, Sonia Bergamo
Publishing Year 2026 Issue 2026/2
Language English Pages 11 P. 123-133 File size 330 KB
DOI 10.3280/SES2026-002012
DOI is like a bar code for intellectual property: to have more infomation click here

Below, you can see the article first page

If you want to buy this article in PDF format, you can do it, following the instructions to buy download credits

Article preview

FrancoAngeli is member of Publishers International Linking Association, Inc (PILA), a not-for-profit association which run the CrossRef service enabling links to and from online scholarly content.

This article critically examines participation within the One Health approach, arguing that it functions not merely as a management device but as a political process through which knowledge, authority, and responsibility are negotiated. We frame OH as a heterogeneous social field shaped by unequal relations of recognition among multiple, overlapping epistemic communities and situated local knowledges. Drawing on methodological reflection on participatory practices, we use critical cartography as an empirical and analytical lens, arguing that mapping is not merely a representational tool but a relational practice that structures whose knowledge counts, thereby enabling or constraining the co-production and redistribution of epistemic authority in health governance.

Keywords: One Health; Participation; Epistemic authority; Critical cartography.

  1. Crampton J.W., Krygier J. (2005). An introduction to critical cartography. ACME: An International EJournal for Critical Geographies, 4(1): 1133.
  2. Adisasmito W.B., Almuhairi S., Behravesh C.B., Bilivogui P., Bukachi S.A., Casas N., Cediel Becerra N., Charron D.F., Chaudhary A., Ciacci Zanella J.R., Cunningham A.A., Dar O., Debnath N., Dungu B., Farag E., Gao G.F., Hayman D.T.S., Khaitsa M., Koopmans M.P.G., Machalaba C., Mackenzie J.S., Markotter W., Mettenleiter T.C., Morand S., Smolenskiy V., Zhou L. (2022). One Health: A new definition for a sustainable and healthy future. PLoS pathogens, 18(6): e1010537.
  3. Balduzzi G., Favretto A.R. (2023). Giving Meaning to Action and Research: Notes on the ‘One Health’Approach from a Sociological Perspective. Development, 66(3): 226232.
  4. Behravesh C.B., Cunningham A.A., Spiegel J.M., Zinsstag J. (2024). An integrated inventory of One Health tools: Mapping and analysis of globally available tools to advance One Health. CABI One Health, 3(1).
  5. Bordier M., Goutard F.L., AntoineMoussiaux N., PhamDuc P., Lailler R., Binot
  6. A. (2021). Engaging stakeholders in the design of One Health surveillance systems: A participatory approach. Frontiers in Veterinary Science, 8: 646458.
  7. Bourdieu P. (1993). Sociology in question. London: Sage Publications.
  8. Burini F. (2022). Cartographie et participation à l’épreuve du topos et de la chora.
  9. In: Debarbieux B., Hirt I., eds., Politiques de la carte. London: ISTE Ltd.
  10. Crampton J.W. (2010). Mapping: A critical introduction to cartography and GIS. Malden: WileyBlackwell.
  11. Davis A., Sharp J. (2020). Rethinking One Health: Emergent human, animal and environmental assemblages. Social Science & Medicine, 258: 113093.
  12. de Almeida A.W.B., Dourado S.B., Bertolini C. (2018). Defending traditional territories by mapping in the Amazon: Projeto Nova Cartografia Social da Amazônia. In: Kollektiv Orangotango, ed., This is not an atlas: A global collection of countercartographies. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.
  13. Delaporte Y. (1989). La neutralisation de l’apparence. Ethnologie française, 130139.
  14. Devulapalli H., Jonnalagadda I. (2018). A civic mapping project in an Indian megacity: The uses and challenges of spatial data for critical research. In: Kollektiv Orangotango, ed., This is not an atlas: A global collection of countercartographies. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.
  15. Foo K., Gallagher E., Bishop I., Kim A.M. (2015). Critical landscape visualization: Introduction to LAND SI “Critical Approaches to Landscape Visualization”. Landscape and Urban Planning, 142: 8084.
  16. Gautreau P., Noucher M. (2022). Farewell to maps: Reformulating critical cartography in the digital age. In: Debarbieux B., Hirt I., eds., The politics of mapping. London: ISTEWiley.
  17. Germes M., Klaus L., Höhne S., eds. (2023). Narcotic cities: Countercartographies of drugs and spaces. Berlin: JOVIS Verlag.
  18. Giddens A. (1999). Risk and Responsibility. Modern Law Review, 62: 110. DOI: 10.1111/14682230.0018
  19. Goodchild M.F. (2007). Citizens as sensors: The world of volunteered geography. GeoJournal, 69(4): 211221.
  20. Harley J.B. (1989). Deconstructing the map. Cartographica, 26(2): 120. DOI: 10.3138/E635782717579T5
  21. Holmes D., Marcus G.E. (2008), Collaboration today and the reimagination of the classic scene of fieldwork encounter. Collaborative Anthropologies, 1: 81110. DOI: 10.1353/CLA.0.000
  22. hooks b. (2010). Teaching critical thinking: Practical wisdom. New York, NY: Routledge.
  23. Keck F. (2015). Sentinel devices: managing uncertainty in species barrier zones. In: SamimianDarash L., Rabinow P., eds. (2015), Modes of uncertainty: Anthropological cases. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  24. Kennelly J. (2018), Troubling participatory action research: Institutional constraints, neoliberal individualism, and the limits of social change in participatory filmmaking with homeless youth. In: Gallagher K., ed., The Methodological Dilemma Revisited: Creative, Critical and Collaborative Approaches to Qualitative Research for a New Era. Oxon: Routledge.
  25. Kent A.J., Specht D. (2023). Geospatial technologies in archaeology. In: Kent A.J., Specht D., eds., The Routledge handbook of geospatial technologies and society. London: Routledge.
  26. Kim A.M. (2015). Critical cartography 2.0: From “participatory mapping” to authored visualizations of power and people. Landscape and Urban Planning, 142: 215225.
  27. kollektiv orangotango+, ed. (2018). This is not an atlas: A global collection of countercartographies. Bielefeld: transcript Verlag.
  28. Luhmann N. (1993). Risk: A sociological theory. Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter. Marcus G.E. (2000). Parasites: A Casebook against Cynical Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  29. Marsland R. (2012). (Bio)sociality and the production of public health in Tanzania. American Ethnologist, 39(2): 316331.
  30. Nguyen V.K. (2019). An Epidemic of Suspicion Ebola and Violence in the DRC. The New England journal of medicine, 380(14): 12981299.
  31. Peluso N.L. (1995). Whose woods are these? Countermapping forest territories in Kalimantan, Indonesia. Antipode, 27(4): 383406.
  32. Perkins C. (2007). Community mapping. The Cartographic Journal, 44(2): 127137. DOI: 10.1179/000870407X21344
  33. Rabinow P. (1995). What ensued was frustrating, certainly not uplifting, but ethnographically instructive. A large, leaderless bureaucracy lurched forward, desperately. In: Marcus G.E., ed., Technoscientific imaginaries: Conversations, profiles, and memoirs. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  34. Russo C. (2023). Fare ricerca partecipativa su benessere e salute nella società sindemica. In: Moretti V., Giarelli G., Genova A., eds., Personalizzazione della cura e partecipazione dei cittadini nella società digitale sindemica. Milano: FrancoAngeli.
  35. SamimianDarash L., Rabinow P., eds. (2015). Modes of uncertainty: Anthropological cases. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  36. Sodikoff G.M. (2012). Forest and labor in Madagascar: From colonial concession to global biosphere. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
  37. Spivak G.C. (1988). “Can the Subaltern Speak?” In: Nelson C., Grossberg L., eds., Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. London: Macmillan.
  38. von Hedemann N., Butterworth M.K., Robbins P., Landau K., Morin C.W. (2015). Visualizations of mosquito risk: A political ecology approach to understanding the territorialization of hazard control. Landscape and Urban Planning, 142: 159169.

Concetta Russo, Sonia Bergamo, Participation as a political arena: plural knowledges and critical cartography in One Health approach in "SALUTE E SOCIETÀ" 2/2026, pp 123-133, DOI: 10.3280/SES2026-002012