Robert Pool
Biographic Data
| ID | 167840 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robert Pool |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robert |
| FAMILY NAME | Pool |
| SIGNATURE | POOL R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6535-9458 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 51 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 185 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 51 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1987 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2022 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Collaborators Collaborating: Counterparts in Anthropological Knowledge and International Research Relations
As bio-capital in the form of medical knowledge, skills and investments moves with greater frequency from its origin in First World industrialized settings to resource-poor communities with weak or little infrastructure, countries with emerging economies are starting to expand new indigenous science bases of their own. The case studies here, from the UK, West Africa, Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Latin America and elsewhere, explore the forms of c…
Social networks for health communication in rural Uganda: A mixed-method analysis of Dekabusa Trading Centre, Luwero County
To reach the most vulnerable individuals in under-resourced countries, health communication interventions increasingly move towards the community level. However, little is known about how health information spreads through local social networks. This paper maps the health information network of a rural trading centre in Uganda. As part of a five-year ethnographic study of sustainable community health resources, ego networks were obtained for 231 …
Beyond solidarity and mutual aid: Tension and conflict in burial groups in rural Uganda
Drawing from ethnographic data collected between 2012 and 2014 and January and June 2018 in Luwero district, Uganda, this article questions the romanticised depiction of burial groups as a means of enhancing social support, a sense of solidarity and mutual aid. We found that the felt sense of identity and belonging for members is not shared across community members, and that solidary relations between members and non-group members in the communit…
Death and Dying
Although death has always been an important topic for anthropologists, it is only in recent decades that the anthropology of death and dying has really taken off. Contemporary anthropologists carry out research on a broad range of death‐related topics, ranging from mortuary rituals, grief, mourning, and communication with the dead to suicide and euthanasia. This research is carried out in a wide range of settings, from the jungles of the Amazon t…
Health Care Sectors
Medical systems are often seen as consisting of three main health care sectors: professional, folk, and popular. In practice these sectors are not discrete entities but components of dynamic health care constellations involving continual interaction between sectors and between different medical systems. Processes of mobility and globalization are increasingly driving this interaction and contributing to growing medical pluralism. Political and ec…
Social support and care arrangements of older people living alone in rural Malaysia
Malaysia has an ageing population and an increasing number of older people who live alone. This study explores the social support and care arrangements of older people living alone in rural Malaysia. The study took a qualitative approach: semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of Malay (N = 20) and Chinese (N = 20) Malaysians aged over 65. Five cross-cutting themes were identified through a thematic analysis: degrees of…
A Captive, a Wreck, a Piece of Dirt: Aging Anxieties Embodied in Older People With a Death Wish
The aims of this present study were to explore the use and meaning of metaphors and images about aging in older people with a death wish and to elucidate what these metaphors and images tell us about their self-understanding and imagined feared future. Twenty-five in-depth interviews with Dutch older people with a death wish (median 82 years) were analyzed by making use of a phenomenological-hermeneutical metaphor analysis approach. We found 10 c…
The verification of ethnographic data
Anthropologists are increasingly required to account for the data on which they base their interpretations and to make it available for public scrutiny and re-analysis. While this may seem straightforward (why not place our data in online repositories?), it is not. Ethnographic 'data' may consist of everything from verbatim transcripts ('hard data') to memories and impressions ('soft data'). Hard data can be archived and re-analysed; soft data ca…
Barriers to uptake of antenatal maternal screening tests in Senegal
In Senegal, recommended antenatal maternal screening tests are substantially underutilized. Efforts to increase test uptake should include accessible testing guidelines, reducing the cost of tests, raising awareness about the reasons for tests, and making the complete test set in point-of-care format accessible in peripheral health posts. National and international antenatal care policies and programs should facilitate access to maternal screenin…
The first mile: Community experience of outbreak control during an Ebola outbreak in Luwero District, Uganda
Given the available anthropological knowledge of a previous outbreak in Northern Uganda, it is surprising that so little serious effort was made this time round to take local sensibilities and culture into account. The "first mile" problem is not only a question of using local resources for early detection, but also of making use of the contextual cultural knowledge that has already been collected and is readily available. Despite remarkable tech…
From ‘trial community’ to ‘experimental publics’: How clinical research shapes public participation
In relation to clinical trials, it is far more usual to speak of the community (singular, static) than of publics (multiple, emergent). Rarely defined, the community is commonly taken to be the existing people in a given area, which the trial will engage, mobilise or sensitise to facilitate successful recruitment and retention. Communities are assumed to pre-exist the research, to be timeless, and to be a whole (sometimes consisting of different …
Anthropologists in Global Health Experiments
Can global health experiments be part of more flexible systems of knowledge generation, where different bodies of knowledge come together to provide understanding not only of the outcomes of new interventions but also of the mechanisms through which they affect people's well-being and health? Building past work in which they tried to transform how global health experiments are carried out and inspired by the articles in this special issue, the au…
Communication About Microbicide Use Between Couples in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
The ways in which couples communicate about microbicides is likely to influence microbicide uptake and usage. We collected quantitative data about whether women in a microbicide trial discussed microbicides with their partners and explored communication about microbicides during 79 in-depth-interviews with women enrolled in the trial and 17 focus-group discussions with community members. After 4 weeks in the trial, 60 % of 1092 women had discusse…
The Implications of Post-coital Intravaginal Cleansing for the Introduction of Vaginal Microbicides in South Africa
Post-coital intravaginal cleansing (IVC) could counteract the protective effect of a vaginal microbicide. IVC less than 1 h after sex is discouraged in most microbicide trials. During a microbicide trial in KwaZulu-Natal, we collected quantitative data on post-coital IVC. We discussed IVC during in-depth-interviews (IDIs) and focus-group discussions (FGDs) with women enrolled in the trial, and during FGDs with community members. Nearly one-third …
Joining and leaving sex work: Experiences of women in Kigali, Rwanda
Although sex work can bring significant economic benefit there are serious downsides, not least vulnerability to adverse sexual health outcomes. Focus-groups discussions and in-depth interviews were conducted with 70 female sex workers to explore the context in which they started sex work, their motivations to leave, and their experiences of trying to leave. The pathway to becoming a sex worker was underscored by poverty, with disruptive events l…
Sexual partner types and related sexual health risk among out-of-school adolescents in rural south-west Uganda
This paper defines the range of sexual partners chosen by out-of-school adolescents from Masaka District in rural south-west Uganda, and implications for sexual and reproductive health discussed. Data are drawn from a sexual health needs assessment using applied anthropological techniques with 31 adolescents, their parents, guardians and community leaders. Data were analysed using inductive thematic methods. Out-of-school adolescents are exposed …
Inherent illnesses and attacks: An ethnographic study of interpretations of childhood Acute Respiratory Infections (ARIs) in Manhiça, southern Mozambique
Health promotion should take into account the syncretism involved in explanations of ARIs in the context of practical care seeking for children. In doing so, it should draw upon lay interpretations and terminologies in order to stress the importance of seeking hospital care for all xifuva-type illnesses as well as seeking care for any subsequent attacks of an already diagnosed xifuva. However, this should be undertaken with awareness that the mea…
The Young Ones are the Condom Generation”: Condom Use amongst Out-of-School Adolescents in Rural Southwest Uganda
This article reports on factors influencing condom use among out-of-school adolescents in rural southwest Uganda. Despite an abundance of negative discourses and myths about condoms in the community, these adolescents believe condoms protect them from sexually transmitted infections, HIV, and premarital pregnancies. Girls want partners to use condoms, but most lack the confidence to insist. Girls aged 13 to 14 reported the least difficulty asking…
Adherence and its Measurement in Phase 2/3 Microbicide Trials
Adherence optimization and measurement have emerged as critically challenging issues for clinical trials of topical microbicides. Although microbicide trials have routinely collected adherence data, their utilization in trial design, implementation, and interpretation has been inconsistent. Drawing on data-driven presentations from several focused meetings, this paper synthesizes lessons from past microbicide trials and provides recommendations f…
Sexual and reproductive health information sources preferred by out-of-school adolescents in rural southwest Uganda
This paper defines how out-of-school adolescents from Masaka District in rural southwest Uganda currently receive sexual and reproductive health information and how they would prefer to receive that information. Information adolescents feel they lack falls into three broad categories: sexual and reproductive health issues, the negotiation of sex and sexual relationships, and making the transition to adulthood. The preferred source for information…
Re-framing microbicide acceptability: Findings from the MDP301 trial
Microbicides are most usually conceptualised within a disease prevention framework and studies usually define acceptability in terms of product characteristics, willingness to use and risk reduction. This starting point has led to assumptions about microbicides which, rather than being challenged by empirical studies, have tended to foreclose the data and subsequent conceptual models. Few studies take an emic ('insider') perspective or attempt to…
Intravaginal insertion in KwaZulu-Natal: Sexual practices and preferences in the context of microbicide gel use
Intravaginal insertion is often associated with the concept of 'dry' sex. All HIV-prevention microbicides tested to date have been vaginally applied lubricant-based gels. In this paper, we examine whether the use of intravaginal insertions could be in conflict with the introduction of vaginal microbicide gels. The Africa Centre site was part of the Microbicides Development Programme evaluating PRO2000/5 microbicide gel. We conducted in-depth-inte…
Delaying sexual debut amongst out-of-school youth in rural southwest Uganda
This paper focuses on 'sexual debut' among out-of-school youth in Masaka District, Uganda, factors influencing its timing and assistance young people feel they need to delay sexual initiation. Data were drawn from a sexual health needs assessment using applied anthropological techniques with young people aged 13-19 years. Parents, guardians and community leaders were also consulted. All participants felt that young people begin their sexual lives…
You Still Need to Give Her a Token of Appreciation”: The Meaning of the Exchange of Money in the Sexual Relationships of Out-of-School Adolescents in Rural Southwest Uganda
This article challenges the pervasive assumption that exchanging gifts and money in adolescent sexual relationships is transactional. Data were derived from a multi-method, qualitative sexual health needs assessment of 31 out-of-school adolescents in rural southwest Uganda. Grounded theory analysis allows contextual meanings of exchange to emerge. Adolescents have developed gendered courting and exchange models that parallel marital relationships…
Group-based citizenship in the acceptance of indoor residual spraying (IRS) for malaria control in Mozambique
He is now like a brother, I can even give him some blood' - Relational ethics and material exchanges in a malaria vaccine 'trial community' in The Gambia
Women who sell sex in a Ugandan trading town: Life Histories, Survival Strategies and Risk
Hot and cold as an explanatory model: The example of Bharuch district in Gujarat, India
Dialogue and the Interpretation of Illness: Conversations in a Cameroon Village
The etiology of the Wimbum people in the Western Grassfields of Cameroon is described through an examination of the way in which the meanings of key concepts, used to interpret and explain illness and other forms of misfortune, are continually being produced and reproduced in the praxis of everyday communication. During the course of numerous dialogues, witchcraft, a highly ambivalent force, gradually emerges as the prime mover. As destructive ca…
Female control of sexuality: Illusion or reality? Use of vaginal products in south west Uganda
The verification of ethnographic data
Anthropologists are increasingly required to account for the data on which they base their interpretations and to make it available for public scrutiny and re-analysis. While this may seem straightforward (why not place our data in online repositories?), it is not. Ethnographic 'data' may consist of everything from verbatim transcripts ('hard data') to memories and impressions ('soft data'). Hard data can be archived and re-analysed; soft data ca…
On the creation and dissolution of ethnomedical systems in the medical ethnography of Africa
Between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s a number of publications appeared in which earlier ethnographies of illness and misfortune in Africa were criticised for placing too much emphasis on supernatural causation and neglecting natural causation and practical medical behaviour. Indeed, following Warren's (1974) first criticism of Field, there was what almost amounted to a crusade to prove that Africans traditionally recognised a separate medical doma…
You're not going to dehydrate mom, are you: Euthanasia, versterving, and good death in the Netherlands
Postmodern Ethnography
Anthropologists in Global Health Experiments
Can global health experiments be part of more flexible systems of knowledge generation, where different bodies of knowledge come together to provide understanding not only of the outcomes of new interventions but also of the mechanisms through which they affect people's well-being and health? Building past work in which they tried to transform how global health experiments are carried out and inspired by the articles in this special issue, the au…
Group-based citizenship in the acceptance of indoor residual spraying (IRS) for malaria control in Mozambique
Social support and care arrangements of older people living alone in rural Malaysia
Malaysia has an ageing population and an increasing number of older people who live alone. This study explores the social support and care arrangements of older people living alone in rural Malaysia. The study took a qualitative approach: semi-structured interviews were conducted with a purposive sample of Malay (N = 20) and Chinese (N = 20) Malaysians aged over 65. Five cross-cutting themes were identified through a thematic analysis: degrees of…
You Still Need to Give Her a Token of Appreciation”: The Meaning of the Exchange of Money in the Sexual Relationships of Out-of-School Adolescents in Rural Southwest Uganda
This article challenges the pervasive assumption that exchanging gifts and money in adolescent sexual relationships is transactional. Data were derived from a multi-method, qualitative sexual health needs assessment of 31 out-of-school adolescents in rural southwest Uganda. Grounded theory analysis allows contextual meanings of exchange to emerge. Adolescents have developed gendered courting and exchange models that parallel marital relationships…
The adventures of the Randy Professor and Angela the Sugar Mummy: Sex in fictional serials in Ugandan popular magazines
In 1996 newspaper vendors in Ugandan towns started selling a new kind of locally produced 'lifestyle' magazine. On the covers there were young, scantily dressed girls and inside news articles, fictional serials, lifestyle articles, agony aunt columns, etc. The new magazines gained an enormous popularity in a short space of time. Everywhere people were seen reading them and copies became brown and tattered from use. Using content analysis, we anal…
Hot and cold as an explanatory model: The example of Bharuch district in Gujarat, India
Postmodern Ethnography
On the creation and dissolution of ethnomedical systems in the medical ethnography of Africa
Between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s a number of publications appeared in which earlier ethnographies of illness and misfortune in Africa were criticised for placing too much emphasis on supernatural causation and neglecting natural causation and practical medical behaviour. Indeed, following Warren's (1974) first criticism of Field, there was what almost amounted to a crusade to prove that Africans traditionally recognised a separate medical doma…
Dialogue and the Interpretation of Illness: Conversations in a Cameroon Village
The etiology of the Wimbum people in the Western Grassfields of Cameroon is described through an examination of the way in which the meanings of key concepts, used to interpret and explain illness and other forms of misfortune, are continually being produced and reproduced in the praxis of everyday communication. During the course of numerous dialogues, witchcraft, a highly ambivalent force, gradually emerges as the prime mover. As destructive ca…
Sexual relationships, condom use and risk perception among female bar workers in north-west Tanzania
This paper discusses the background characteristics, sexual relationships, condom use and risk perception of bar workers in Magu district, north-west Tanzania. Bar workers in Magu are geographically mobile. They are not highly educated but probably have a higher level of schooling than average. They are mostly unmarried or divorced. They choose bar work because, given the resources available, it provides them with a good balance between earning t…
Women's attitudes to condoms and female-controlled means of protection against HIV and STDs in South-Western Uganda
The consistent and correct use of the male condom makes it highly effective in both disease prevention and as a contraceptive method. However, it is also well recognized that its use is under men's control. Because of this vital limitation, there have been frequent calls for female-controlled methods of HIV prevention, particularly from women from sub-Saharan Africa. Here we report on data collected in focus-group discussions (FGDs) with women ag…
Men's attitudes to condoms and female controlled means of protection against HIV and STDs in south-western Uganda
There is widespread demand for the development of female controlled methods of protection against sexually transmitted diseases and HIV. The success of such methods will depend on their acceptability to women and their male partners. Currently, the only form of HIV prevention under women's control is the female condom. This paper reports on men's attitudes to female controlled methods in southwest Uganda. Data were collected in individual intervi…
Socializing influences and the value of sex: The experience of adolescent school girls in rural Masaka, Uganda
To explore the socializing influences which have shaped rural adolescent schoolgirls' views and values about sex in a high HIV prevalence area of Uganda, detailed qualitative data were obtained over a 1-year period from 15 schoolgirls aged 14-17 years. The girls were chosen for their willingness to participate actively in a series of role plays, focus group discussions, and one-to-one interviews. Results indicated that the girls have been subject…
Dialogue and the Interpretation of Illness: Conversations in a Cameroon Village
Robert Pool,Dialogue and the Interpretation of Illness: conversations in a Cameroon village. Explorations in Anthropology series, Oxford: Berg, 1994, 285 pp., £39.95, ISBN 0 85496 873 3 hard covers, £14.95, ISBN 085973 016 7 paperback. - Volume 70 Issue 1
The negotiation of sexual relationships among school pupils in south-western Uganda
The objective of the study was to explore how school-going adolescents in south-western Uganda negotiate sexual relationships. Qualitative data were obtained from 15 boys and 15 girls (14-18 years old), during a series of role plays, focus group discussions and one-to-one interviews. A questionnaire was administered to 80 pupils (12-20 years old) from the same school. Most of the pupils were sexually active. Sexual relationships between boys and …
Truck drivers, middlemen and commercial sex workers: Aids and the mediation of sex in south west Uganda
Although long distance truck drivers have been implicated in the spread of HIV in Africa, there is a paucity of studies of their sexual cultures. This paper reports on a study of the sexual culture of drivers, mediators and commercial sex workers (CSWs) in a roadside truck stop on the Trans-Africa highway in south west Uganda. Sixty-nine truck drivers, six middlemen and 12 CSWs were interviewed using semi-structured questionnaires. Interviewing t…
Traditional sex counselling and STI/HIV prevention among young women in rural Uganda
This study examined the potential of traditional ways of passing on sexual knowledge from adult to younger women (the senga institution) among the Baganda of central Uganda, as a potential tool for STI/HIV prevention today. Traditional and contemporary forms of the institution were studied, and their strengths and weaknesses assessed. Data were collected using qualitative research methods. The senga institution comprises four components: Social r…
Female control of sexuality: Illusion or reality? Use of vaginal products in south west Uganda
Women who sell sex in a Ugandan trading town: Life Histories, Survival Strategies and Risk
Harnessing the senga institution of adolescent sex education for the control of HIV and STDs in rural Uganda
Senga (father's sister) is a traditional channel of communication about sexual behaviour for adolescent females in rural Uganda. We evaluated a modification of this approach as an intervention for HIV and STDs in a pilot study in two intervention villages and one control village over 12 months. Eleven adult women and three adolescent girls were chosen and trained to become sengas. Adolescent girls were encouraged to visit the sengas for sexual he…
Community sex education among adolescents in rural Uganda: Utilizing indigenous institutions
Although adolescent girls in Uganda are particularly vulnerable to HIV infection, providing relevant sexual health education to them is problematic. The senga (father's sister), is the traditional channel for socializing adolescent girls into sex and marriage among many ethnic groups in Uganda. This paper discusses the implementation and community acceptability of 'modern' sengas who were trained to provide HIV-related counselling to adolescent g…
Mobility, sexual networks and exchange among bodabodamen in southwest Uganda
In order to examine the sexual behaviour of a highly mobile social group, qualitative data and quantitative data were elicited from 212 private motorbike taxi-men, locally called bodabodamen, from two study sites in Masaka, Uganda. Selection criteria were availability and willingness to participate in the study. Research techniques employed were a questionnaire, focus group discussions, in-depth interviews and case studies. Findings indicate that…
You're not going to dehydrate mom, are you: Euthanasia, versterving, and good death in the Netherlands
Attitudes to voluntary counselling and testing prior to the offer of Nevirapine to prevent vertical transmission of HIV in northern Tanzania
In developed countries much progress has been made in reducing vertical transmission of HIV using antiretroviral therapies. To achieve similar gains in Africa the acceptability of routine HIV testing of pregnant women is becoming increasingly important. Evidence of reluctance of pregnant women to undergo HIV testing has led to suggestions to offer antiretroviral therapy to pregnant women without prior HIV testing. In this study we set out to iden…
The adventures of the Randy Professor and Angela the Sugar Mummy: Sex in fictional serials in Ugandan popular magazines
In 1996 newspaper vendors in Ugandan towns started selling a new kind of locally produced 'lifestyle' magazine. On the covers there were young, scantily dressed girls and inside news articles, fictional serials, lifestyle articles, agony aunt columns, etc. The new magazines gained an enormous popularity in a short space of time. Everywhere people were seen reading them and copies became brown and tattered from use. Using content analysis, we anal…
Understanding sexual behaviour change in rural southwest Uganda: A multi-method study
Studies report substantial sexual behaviour change in Africa in response to HIV/AIDS. Generally there seems to be an increase in condom use and a reduction in partners, with men reporting more change than women. However, it is not only important to know whether people are changing their sexual behaviour but also their reasons for changing and the consistency and extent of change. Between 1996 and 2000 a study involving 196 respondents was carried…
Community attitudes towards individuals living with HIV in rural KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa
Antenatal sero-prevalence rates of 30% and more have been reported in KwaZulu-Natal since 1998 and over 50% of all adult deaths in 2000 were due to AIDS. Understanding the changing social and cultural attitudes to AIDS is important in providing contextual information to aid the design of interventions. This paper examines community attitudes towards individuals living with HIV. Eleven focus groups were conducted with men and women. Participants w…
Gender relations in the context of HIV/Aids in rural South Africa
As part of the Microbicides Development Programme, we conducted formative research to explore gender relations at a site in rural KwaZulu-Natal. We were interested in gender relations and in assessing their implications for emerging female initiated and controlled HIV prevention methods in the form of microbicides. Eleven focus group discussions were conducted with men and women in the community. Participants were asked about decision making abou…
The role of partnership dynamics in determining the acceptability of condoms and microbicides
Microbicides are a class of substances under development that could reduce the sexual transmission of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases when applied locally to genital mucosal surfaces. Microbicide acceptability research has largely focused on product characteristics, rather than processes of negotiation within relationships about use. Gender relations, decision-making power and communication within sexual relationships are recognised a…
Perceptions of anal sex in rural South Africa
As part of the Microbicides Development Programme, we conducted formative research to explore perceptions of anal sex at a site in rural KwaZulu-Natal. We were interested in the practice of anal sex because of its potential role in HIV transmission. Eleven focus group discussions were conducted with men and women from rural areas and in a semi-urban township. Participants were asked about their knowledge of and attitudes towards anal sex, and its…
Sociology (37 works) · Medicine (34 works) · Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health (26 works) · Psychology (23 works) · Family medicine (18 works) · HIV/AIDS Research and Interventions (18 works) · Environmental health (17 works) · Political science (17 works) · Population (17 works) · Sex work and related issues (17 works)