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Following the Filter: Material Culture and the Response to a GBS Outbreak in Gaza
Presented by Dorotea Gucciardo, Research Coordinator, Starling Centre, as part of the 2026/27 FIMS Seminar Series.
Attend in-person: FNB 4130
Attend online: Zoom link forthcoming
Abstract: During the summer of 2025, physicians in Gaza confronted an unexpected outbreak of Guillain–Barré syndrome (GBS) amid total blockade, widespread famine, repeated mass casualty events, and the collapse of much of the health system. Drawing on ethnographic research, interviews with healthcare workers in Gaza, and STS Studies and material culture approaches, this presentation follows the plasmapheresis filter — a small but indispensable component of life-saving therapy — as a means of tracing how neurological care was reassembled under conditions of extreme constraint. By following the filter's journey, the presentation examines how medical objects, humanitarian logistics, cross-border clinical collaboration, and local technical expertise came together to produce new forms of care when conventional infrastructures had collapsed.