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- Convenor:
-
Robin Oakley
(Dalhousie University)
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- Track:
- Survival and Extinction
- Location:
- Alan Turing Building G110
- Sessions:
- Thursday 8 August, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In this panel we assess approaches oriented on the World Bank/WHOs vision of 'selective healthcare'. We call for critical reflection on the ontology of of this approach and propose alternatives to current arrangements.
Long Abstract:
All over the world, public health systems were established in the 1960s through the efforts of social movements and dedicated individuals who asserted both the need for and the content of Alma Ata's "health for all". It has taken about fifty years to dismantle these systems through structural adjustment policies and other initiatives deemed optimal for private interests toward selective healthcare. Likewise, as BRICS, NAFTA and other emergent geopolitical trade blocks compete for their piece of the re-colonising world, there are a wide range of social movements continuing to demand the economic and social determinants of health as well as for publicly funded healthcare. We are calling for contributors to critically reflect on, and assess, the ontology of selective healthcare in publications, media reports, through their fieldwork in locations targeted by global health projects or through other sources. We are also looking for papers that also propose alternatives to the current arrangements.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 8 August, 2013, -Helen Macdonald (University of Cape Town)
Paper short abstract:
Anthropologists are undertaking TB-related research on concepts which create ‘health citizens’. While it is imperative for anthropologists to study the social and political tropes of an infection, we must be wary of the global health agenda and their responses to our disciplinary expertise.
Paper long abstract:
Global health funding for tuberculosis (TB) aims to develop rapid diagnostic tests that are cheap, simple to use, and can quickly and accurately diagnose TB in low-resource settings. A similar trend has been a shift from producing post-diagnostic antibiotics to producing vaccinations that preclude the onset of TB. These are critical yet isolated responses to a complex problem. A critical medical anthropological approach can strengthen understanding of social markers of TB and treatment seeking behaviour. While it is imperative for anthropologists to commit to study the social and political tropes of an infection, we must be cautious of the global health agenda and their responses to our disciplinary expertise. Currently, social scientists are undertaking research on 'adherence', 'compliance' and 'trust' in the face of emerging drug-resistant TB strains—concepts which confer responsibility on the individual health seeker—an agenda set by global health imperatives. Here, anthropology and anthropologists feel like visitors in health-related research. The historical legacies of the global health approaches surrounding TB knowledge have effectively disaggregated treatment regimes from food security, nutrition or hunger. By researching a group of health activists committed to providing preventive and curative services in poverty stricken areas of Chhattisgarh state in central India, this research asked how 'hungry' TB infected patients negotiated biomedical knowledge and practices that aim to create 'responsible' (ie. adherent) patients. This research contributes to a critical ethical theory of risk and vulnerability in relation to subjectivities forged in and inhabiting globalised biomedical forms.
Reddisekhara Yalamala (Dalhousie University)
Paper short abstract:
Global health is the development keyword these days with its promise to fix all the major health problems through biotechnology and private enterprise. In this paper I critique this approach in relation to tribal and low caste peoples of India.
Paper long abstract:
Global health is the development buzzword these days. Promises to fix all the major health problems through a potent combination of biotechnology and private enterprise is the content of the strategy. In this paper I will critique this approach in relation to Tribal and certain low caste peoples who represent a seemingly medicine-free pristine population for genetic mining, clinical trials and so on. Global health, far from being an innocuous and benevolent health development strategy, is very often all about assisting capital circulation into new regions and assisting with monopoly building of private-based healthcare firms. India has a wide range of scholars who have long resisted these kind of vertical and horizontal programs that have been known to fail. Why are these critiques not being heeded? Who benefits and who looses? What role do social scinetists play in facilitating or blocking these arrangements in their spheres of influence?
Janice Graham (Dalhousie University)
Paper short abstract:
Multi-sector partnerships purportedly streamline costs of innovation by scripting pharmaceutical regulation as risk management. Consumer choice is manipulated in models of risk-harm-benefit. Using ethnographic evidence, a cosmopolitical proposal is advanced for a responsible regulatory landscape.
Paper long abstract:
Global multi-sector partnerships between pharmaceutical companies, academic researchers, disease advocates, and the general public are promoted by funding agencies as a way of streamlining and sharing risks and costs of innovation development. We have perhaps naively expected governments to protect us from preventable dangers through regulations that provide assurance of the safety, efficacy and quality of novel products. A rescripting of regulatory responsibility worldwide, however, has been emphasising the management of risks in light of ubiquitous uncertainty. Not being able to predict and control the unexpected relieves governments pandering to industry of their responsibilities. Consumer choice and rights are being manipulated in algorithms employing measures and models of risk-harm-benefit and cost. Attending to a political ecology, Isabelle Stengers' cosmopolitical proposal asks us to imagine a "worldwide civil society" where everyone, all shareholders, have a voice. But how do we ensure equity for the less powerful against profit interests? This paper explores regulatory incidents of these phenomena, gained through longitudinal ethnographic research with scientists, clinicians, and regulators involved in the safety and efficacy of emerging biologic and vaccine technologies. Case studies are used to explore a cosmopolitical proposal that makes space for an open ethical regulatory landscape, one that commands and controls reliable and verifiable evidence by recognizing and remaining responsible for unpredictabilities and power inequities.
G.Ravi Kumar (Sri Venkateswara University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper will examine the extent of the malaria problem in Andhra Pradesh and the effectiveness of this ancient method in preventing Malaria in the absence of other prevention measures.
Paper long abstract:
Malaria is a serious, but preventable disease that spreads when there are showers at the very beginning of the rainy season and affects ST peoples severley. Tribal people usually reside near ponds in thick forests and also recently as farmers orchards as security personnel. They are fond of living in huts made of palm leaves. They seldom use mosquito nets instead following the ancient method of extracting oil from local seeds and keeping it in lamp-like bottles that are lit during nights to protect themselves. Some of them apply this oil to their bodies to be free from mosquito. This paper will examine the extent of the malaria problem in Andhra Pradesh and the effectiveness of this ancient method in preventing Malaria in the absence of other prevention measures.