In June 2015 The Bellagio Task Force on Epidemics and Xenophobia met to discuss the resurgence of xenophobia across the globe—one most recently prompted by fearful and unsympathetic responses to the Ebola epidemic and those afflicted communities and healthcare workers who returned home. The problem of xenophobia is however part of a much larger and pernicious problem, one that falls
Tag Archives: Humanitarianism
Caring as existential insecurity: quarantine, care, and human insecurity in the Ebola crisis
This article is part of the series: Ebola fieldnotes
In August of this year, when the Ebola outbreak escalated in Liberia and a state of emergency had been declared for the country, Fatu Kekula, a young Liberian nursing student, improvised personal protective equipment (PPE) to care for her father, mother, sister, and cousin. After three of the relatives survived, her method was featured prominently in the international news media …
The Lancet Commission on Culture and Health
Recently, A. David Napier and colleagues published their executive summary from The Lancet Commission on Culture and Health (The Lancet, Volume 384, Issue 9954, pp. 1607-1639, 1 November 2014). They write:
“This Commission is the first ever detailed appraisal of the role of culture in health, bringing together voices from different fields, including anthropologists, social scientists, and …
Race and the immuno-logics of Ebola response in West Africa
This article is part of the series: Ebola fieldnotes
On September 14, 2014, I woke up to the news that a fourth Sierra Leonean doctor, Dr. Olivet Buck, had died after having treated patients with Ebola. By then, there had been nearly 2,300 confirmed deaths, with about 150 of them being health care workers at the front line of the epidemic. All Ebola deaths are tragic, and many of …
Notes from Case Zero: Anthropology in the time of Ebola
This article is part of the series: Ebola fieldnotes
The lead for a story on the Ebola outbreak is, by now, familiar: on the 22nd of March, the Guinean Ministry of Health declared an outbreak of Ebola, the first ever in the region. The virus has since spread through the countryside and across its borders: west to Sierra Leone, south to Liberia, and most recently, north into Senegal. Cases …
Web Roundup: Ebola
This article is part of the series: Ebola fieldnotes
When I teach Medical Anthropology, we talk about globalization and infectious disease, with a focus on the increasing speed of global travel. Typically, I discuss a hypothetical epidemic that could accompany a traveller from a distant continent to the local airport. This year, a hypothetical epidemic will not be necessary. Instead, we have the rapid spread of Ebola, poised to …