Theorizing global health

Bibliographic Data

ID3632406
AuthorsJoão B Biehl (0000-0003-4843-4804, corresponding author), João Biehl
Year2016
Volume3
Issue2
Publication date2016-09-13
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedicine Anthropology Theory (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 2405-691X • E-ISSN: 2405-691X
PublisherEdinburgh University Library (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.17157/mat.3.2.434
OpenAlexW2737070400
LanguageEN
Citations received58

Reflecting on the recent West African Ebola outbreak, this piece advocates for a critical and people-centered approach both to and within global health. I discuss the current state of the field as well as critical theoretical responses to it, arguing that an ethnographic focus on evidence and efficacy at the local level raises rather than lowers the bar for thoughtful inquiry and action. The current moment calls less for the all-knowing hubris of totalizing analytical schemes than for a human science (and politics) of the uncertain and unknown. It is the immanent negotiations of people, institutions, technologies, evidence, social forms, ecosystems, health, efficacy, and ethics - in their temporary stabilization, production, excess, and creation - that animate the unfinishedness of ethnography and critical global health

Environmental ethics · Epistemology · Ethnography · Hubris · Negotiation · Political science · Politics · Social science · Sociology · Global Security and Public Health · Health and Conflict Studies · Law · Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research