Work of Time

For many Tanzanians with and without an HIV diagnosis, antiretroviral therapies have become a generative object around which to contemplate what it means to live in toxic times—that is, to reflect on this historical moment in which life (individual and communal) is only possible through the “toxicity” of such pharmaceutical regimes. This chapter considers dawa lishe as an effort to navigate the fault line of chronic disease in the wake of AIDS. Therapies strive to enroll bodies in rhythms that respond to, but also expand beyond, the pharmaceutical logics and the tempos of biomedical institutions. I explore how these plant(ing) remedies work by catalyzing temporal play. By attending to the relational vitalities of humans and nonhumans, human–plant co-laboring works through and beyond the times of individual lives toward the continuance of lineage and land. In so doing, producers cultivate modes of attention and forms of multispecies care that have been eclipsed in the clinic.