Living with and Learning From Bed Bugs

New York and New Forms of Interspecies Sociability

Abstract

This essay uses the subjective experience of a bed bug infestation as the starting point for thinking through the nature of parasitic relationships.  Calling on recent literatures in mulit- and inter-species ethnography, the author asks the following question: if, as Anna Tsing has argued, a new kind of science is being born, one whose key characteristic is “multispecies love,” can we, as individuals, and as social beings, learn to love bed bugs?

Keywords: Multispecies ethnography; bed bugs; interspecies sociability; parasites; multispecies love