K Hampshire
Biographic Data
| ID | 8464 |
|---|---|
| NAME | K Hampshire |
| GIVEN NAMES | K |
| FAMILY NAME | Hampshire |
| SIGNATURE | HAMPSHIRE K |
| AFFILIATIONS | Durham University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-4184-849X |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 60 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 432 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 60 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 13 |
Illuminating inequalities in students’ sense of belonging at university from a Bourdieusian perspective
This paper reports on a survey and follow-up focus groups with students attending a highly academically selective and socially ‘elite’ university in England. Informed by Bourdieu’s theory of class-based capitals, the research explores three distinctive dimensions of (non)belonging at university among our study participants relating to levels of (1) economic capital evident in feeling financially able to participate in the extracurricular aspects …
Logics of acquiring medicines from informal retailers in four African countries
BACKGROUND: In sub-Saharan Africa and other low-income contexts, informal medicine markets are widespread. Understanding the drivers of consumer demand is important, especially given the concerns and risks associated with medicines in the informal sector. OBJECTIVES: This study aims to 1) describe the informal medicine sector in four anglophone African countries, and 2) understand why people patronize informal medicine sellers. METHODS: = 111), i…
Can public education campaigns equitably counter the use of substandard and falsified medical products in African countries
Substandard and falsified (SF) medical products are a serious health and economic concern that disproportionately impact low- and middle-income countries and marginalized groups. Public education campaigns are demand-side interventions that may reduce the risk of SF exposure, but the effectiveness of such campaigns, and their likelihood of benefitting everybody, is unclear. Nationwide pilot risk communication campaigns, involving multiple media, …
Medicines in motion: An ethnographic exploration of the informal cross-border pharmaceutical trade in Africa
The informal cross-border trade (ICBT) in medicines in Africa is an under-explored phenomenon, with potentially serious public health implications. We conducted ethnographic research (Dec 2022-Jan 2023) at two major border crossings in East and West Africa: between Ghana-Togo at Aflao/Lomé and Kenya-Tanzania at Namanga. Observations at strategic locations were complemented by informal interviews with traders, transporters, retailers, border offic…
The role of constraints and information gaps in driving risky medicine purchasing practices in four African countries
Substandard and falsified (SF) medical products pose a major threat to public health and socioeconomic development, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. In response, public education campaigns have been developed to alert consumers about the risks of SF medicines and provide guidance on ‘safer’ practices, along with other demand- and supply-side measures. However, little is currently known about the potential effectiveness of such ca…
Antimalarial stocking decisions among medicine retailers in Ghana: Implications for quality management and control of malaria
Global health efforts such as malarial control require efficient pharmaceutical supply chains to ensure effective delivery of quality-assured medicines to those who need them. However, very little is currently known about decision-making processes within antimalarial supply chains and potential vulnerabilities to substandard and falsified medicines. Addressing this gap, we report on a study that investigated decision-making around the stocking of…
Antimalarial procurement in private-sector pharmaceutical outlets: Decision-making complexities and implications for medicine quality in Tanzania
Poor-quality medicines are a major threat to healthcare provision in low-income countries. The problem exacerbates disease vulnerabilities of already disadvantaged populations including children, women, and the elderly. However, while the higher-level structural drivers of this problem are well established, little is known about decision-making lower down pharmaceutical supply chains, and whether this might produce vulnerabilities for medicine qu…
Monitoring, reporting and regulating medicine quality: Tensions between theory and practice in Tanzania
In 2012, the WHO launched its Global Surveillance and Monitoring System (GSMS) for substandard and falsified medicines, with the aim of improving the quality of reporting and using the data to inform post-market surveillance and build regulatory capacity. However, from a regulatory governance perspective, its effectiveness depends on the willingness and ability of actors ‘on the ground’ to identify, report and investigate possible infringements a…
The role of support groups in the management of Parkinson’s disease in Kenya: Sociality, information and legitimacy
Parkinson's disease (PD) is the second most common neurodegenerative disease globally. It is a progressive neurological disorder which can lead to a decline in wellbeing and quality of life for people living with PD (PwP) and their families/caregivers. However, little is known about the experience of PwP in low- and middle-income countries. In high-income countries, the benefits of support groups in providing social support, preventing social iso…
Formalising ‘informal’ mHealth in Ghana: Opportunities and challenges for Universal Health Coverage (UHC)
While mobile phones promise to be an important tool for bridging the healthcare gaps in resource-poor areas in developing countries, scalability and sustainability of mobile phones for health (mhealth) interventions still remain a major challenge. Meanwhile, health workers are already using their own mobile phones (referred to as 'informal mhealth') to facilitate healthcare delivery in diverse ways. Therefore, this paper explores some strategies …
Mobile phone use and the welfare of community health nurses in Ghana: An analysis of unintended costs
The use of mobile phones is fast transforming the healthcare delivery landscape in Ghana. A substantial number of health facilities are now dependent on mobile phones to facilitate their work. Evidence of the use of mobile phones in Ghana's healthcare is however limited. In order to contribute to the evidence of the value of using mobile phones to promote healthcare, we interrogated and highlighted unexpected costs imposed on community health nur…
Informal mhealth at scale in Africa: Opportunities and challenges
The extraordinary global growth of digital connectivity has generated optimism that mobile technologies can help overcome infrastructural barriers to development, with 'mobile health' (mhealth) being a key component of this. However, while 'formal' (top-down) mhealth programmes continue to face challenges of scalability and sustainability, we know relatively little about how health-workers are using their own mobile phones informally in their wor…
"Old people problems", uncertainty and legitimacy: Challenges with diagnosing Parkinson's disease in Kenya
Very little is known about the experience of people living with Parkinson's disease (PD) in low- and middle-income countries, such as those in sub-Saharan Africa. The number of specialists in the region is low and awareness is limited among the population and healthcare professionals. Drawing on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork in urban and rural Kenya with 55 people living with PD (PwP), 23 family members and 22 healthcare professionals from…
I'm not a freshi: Culture shock, puberty and growing up as British-Bangladeshi girls
Early puberty is a risk factor for adult diseases and biomedical and psychosocial research implicate growth (in height and weight) and stress as modifiable drivers of early puberty. Seldom have studies examined these drivers simultaneously or concurrently using quantitative and qualitative methods. Within the context of migration, we used mixed-methods to compare growth, stress and puberty in a study of 488 girls, aged 5-16, who were either Bangl…
Sniff and Tell: The Feasibility of Using Bio-Detection Dogs as a Mobile Diagnostic Intervention for Asymptomatic Malaria in Sub-Saharan Africa
Bio-Detection Dogs (BDDs) are used in some high-income countries as a diagnostic intervention, yet little is known about their potential in low/middle-income countries with limited diagnostic resources. This exploratory study investigated the opportunities and implications of deploying BDDs as a mobile diagnostic intervention to identify people with asymptomatic malaria, particularly at ports of entry, as an important step to malaria elimination …
Role of Trust in a Self-Organizing Pharmaceutical Supply Chain Model with Variable Good Quality and Imperfect Information
We present an Agent-Based Model (herea er ABM) for a pharmaceutical supply chain operating under conditions of weak regulation and imperfect information, exploring the possibility of poor quality medicines and their detection. Our interest is to demonstrate how buyers can learn about the quality of sellers (and their medicines) based on previous successful and unsuccessful transactions, thereby establishing trust over time. Furthermore, this netw…
Managing uncertainty in medicine quality in Ghana: The cognitive and affective basis of trust in a high-risk, low-regulation context
Connecting with home, keeping in touch: Physical and virtual mobility across stretched families in sub-Saharan Africa
There is a long history of migration among low-income families in sub-Saharan Africa, in which (usually young, often male) members leave home to seek their fortune in what are perceived to be more favourable locations. While the physical and virtual mobility practices of such stretched families are often complex and contingent, maintaining contact with distantly located close kin is frequently of crucial importance for the maintenance of emotiona…
Exploring the intersection between physical and virtual mobilities in urban South Africa
The mobile phone is transforming African mobile lives at a variety of scales, from the minutiae of individual spatial orientations to expansive global connectivities. Now-possible fluid interdependencies between corporeal mobility and virtual mobility have the potential to reframe and reshape lives, especially for young people, who typically have limited financial resources yet are often at the vanguard of mobile phone adoption. This chapter expl…
Young People’s Daily Mobilities in Sub-Saharan Africa: Moving Young Lives
This book explores the daily mobilities and immobilities of children and young people in sub-Saharan Africa. The authors draw on findings from rural and urban field research extending over many years, culminating in a 24-site study across three African countries: Ghana, Malawi, and South Africa. Wider reflections on gender, relationality, the politics of mobility, and field methodology frame the study. By bringing together diverse strands of a co…
Who bears the cost of ‘informal mhealth’? Health-workers’ mobile phone practices and associated political-moral economies of care in Ghana and Malawi
Africa's recent communications 'revolution' has generated optimism that using mobile phones for health (mhealth) can help bridge healthcare gaps, particularly for rural, hard-to-reach populations. However, while scale-up of mhealth pilots remains limited, health-workers across the continent possess mobile phones. This article draws on interviews from Ghana and Malawi to ask whether/how health-workers are using their phones informally and with wha…
The application of Signalling Theory to health-related trust problems: The example of herbal clinics in Ghana and Tanzania
In contexts where healthcare regulation is weak and levels of uncertainty high, how do patients decide whom and what to trust? In this paper, we explore the potential for using Signalling Theory (ST, a form of Behavioural Game Theory) to investigate health-related trust problems under conditions of uncertainty, using the empirical example of 'herbal clinics' in Ghana and Tanzania. Qualitative, ethnographic fieldwork was conducted over an eight-mo…
Intergenerational relations and the power of the cell phone: Perspectives on young people’s phone usage in sub-Saharan Africa
Cell phones present new forms of sociality and new possibilities of encounter for young people across the globe. Nowhere is this more evident than in sub-Saharan Africa where the scale of usage, even among the very poor, is remarkable. In this paper we reflect on the inter-generational encounters which are embedded in young people’s cell phone interactions, and consider the wider societal implications, not least the potential for associated shift…
Informal m-health: How are young people using mobile phones to bridge healthcare gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa
The African communications 'revolution' has generated optimism that mobile phones might help overcome infrastructural barriers to healthcare provision in resource-poor contexts. However, while formal m-health programmes remain limited in coverage and scope, young people are using mobile phones creatively and strategically in an attempt to secure effective healthcare. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data collected in 2012-2014 from over 45…
Context Matters: Fostering, Orphanhood and Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa
A growing body of research suggests that orphanhood and fostering might be (independently) associated with educational disadvantage in sub-Saharan Africa. However, literature on the impacts of orphanhood and fostering on school enrolment, attendance and progress produces equivocal, and often conflicting, results. This paper reports on quantitative and qualitative data from sixteen field-sites in Ghana and Malawi, highlighting the importance of hi…
Moving young lives: Mobility, immobility and inter-generational tensions in urban Africa
Grandfathers, Google, and Dreams: Medical Pluralism, Globalization, and New Healing Encounters in Ghana
Across contemporary Africa, pluralistic medical fields are becoming increasingly complex, giving rise to newly emerging constellations of healing practices and a vast array of therapeutic possibilities. We present portraits of four 'traditional' healers in southern Ghana who selectively adapt, adopt, and modify elements of biomedical, 'local,' and 'exotic' healing practices in eclectic and creative ways, positioning themselves strategically in a …
Context Matters: Fostering, Orphanhood and Schooling in Sub-Saharan Africa
A growing body of research suggests that orphanhood and fostering might be (independently) associated with educational disadvantage in sub-Saharan Africa. However, literature on the impacts of orphanhood and fostering on school enrolment, attendance and progress produces equivocal, and often conflicting, results. This paper reports on quantitative and qualitative data from sixteen field-sites in Ghana and Malawi, highlighting the importance of hi…
Linkages between Livelihood Opportunities and Refugee-Host Relations: Learning from the Experiences of Liberian Camp-based Refugees in Ghana
This paper combines recent livelihoods approaches to refugee studies with a social resilience framework to explore the interlinkages between refugee-host relations and refugee coping strategies in the Buduburam camp in Ghana. The reported experiences of camp residents and of the people with whom they interact in their efforts to make a living (NGO staff, government officials, traders etc.) illustrate the complex interplay between personal network…
Informal m-health: How are young people using mobile phones to bridge healthcare gaps in Sub-Saharan Africa
The African communications 'revolution' has generated optimism that mobile phones might help overcome infrastructural barriers to healthcare provision in resource-poor contexts. However, while formal m-health programmes remain limited in coverage and scope, young people are using mobile phones creatively and strategically in an attempt to secure effective healthcare. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data collected in 2012-2014 from over 45…
Doing it right?’: Working with young researchers in Malawi to investigate children, transport and mobility
This paper explores involving children in Malawi in research about young people, mobility and transport, respecting their rights of participation, education, and protection from exploitation. The Malawi study forms one component of a research project taking place in three sub-Saharan African countries. A foundation of the larger project was the conviction that children are experts on their own lives; therefore seeking children's views was essenti…
Mobility, education and livelihood trajectories for young people in rural Ghana: A gender perspective
This paper examines the gendered implications of Africa's transport gap (the lack of cheap, regular and reliable transport) for young people in rural Ghana, with particular reference to the linkages between restricted mobility, household work demands, access to education and livelihood potential. Our aim is to show how mobility constraints, especially as these interact with household labour demands, restrict young people's access to education and…
Where dogs, ghosts and lions roam: Learning from mobile ethnographies on the journey from school
This paper draws on mobility research conducted with children in three countries: Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. It has two interlinked aims: to highlight the potential that mobile interviews can offer in research with young people, especially in research contexts where the main focus is on mobility and its impacts, and to contribute empirical evidence regarding the significance of everyday mobility to young people's lives and future life chance…
Can arts projects improve young people's wellbeing? A social capital approach
Community arts projects are widely believed to have positive impacts on health, wellbeing and social inclusion. Such beliefs underpinned the UK Government-funded SingUp programme for children. Drawing on data from participant observation, extended interviews, focus groups and a questionnaire survey, we examine the experiences of children in three SingUp choirs. We focus specifically on social and emotional wellbeing as they relate to social capit…
Saving lives, preserving livelihoods: Understanding risk, decision-making and child health in a food crisis
The purpose of this paper is to analyse household decision-making regarding resource allocation in the aftermath of a food crisis in rural Niger. International attention had resulted in humanitarian agencies launching emergency nutrition programmes to alleviate persistently high levels of acute child malnutrition. We conducted participant observation, 93 in-depth interviews, 15 focus groups, 44 feeding and illness histories for children under 5, …
The social context of childcare practices and child malnutrition in Niger's recent food crisis
In 2004-05, Niger suffered a food crisis during which global attention focused on high levels of acute malnutrition among children. In response, decentralised emergency nutrition programmes were introduced into much of southern Niger. Child malnutrition, however, is a chronic problem and its links with food production and household food security are complex. This qualitative, anthropological study investigates pathways by which children are rende…
Real” Poachers and Predators: Shades of Meaning in Local Understandings of Threats to Fisheries
This article explores the idea of multiple and contested notions of nature, natural resource management, and the implications for local involvement with conservation, within the context of attitudes toward poachers and other predators of fish in the Nemunas Delta area of Lithuania. Qualitative research methods are used to elicit local understandings of threats to fishing livelihoods and to unravel the ambiguities surrounding people's perceptions …
Out of the reach of children? Young people's health-seeking practices and agency in Africa's newly-emerging therapeutic landscapes
Despite a dominant view within Western biomedicine that children and medicines should be kept apart, a growing literature suggests that children and adolescents often take active roles in health-seeking. Here, we consider young people's health-seeking practices in Ghana: a country with a rapidly-changing therapeutic landscape, characterised by the recent introduction of a National Health Insurance Scheme, mass advertising of medicines, and increa…
Children as Research Collaborators: Issues and Reflections from a Mobility Study in Sub‐Saharan Africa
This paper reflects on issues raised by work with children in an ongoing child mobility study in three sub‐Saharan African countries: Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. There are now 70 school pupils of varying ages involved in the project, but the paper is particularly concerned with the participation of those children 14 years and under. We examine the significant ethical issues associated with working with younger child researchers, and linked qu…
Flexibility in Domestic Organization and Seasonal Migration among the Fulani of Northern Burkina Faso
Migration patterns among the Fulani of Burkina Faso have changed over recent decades from predominant transhumance, involving whole families, to seasonal rural-to-urban labour migration of young men. This article uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to examine the relationships between the new forms of migration and domestic organization. Specifically, it asks the following questions: (1) How do households accommodate the tempo…
Child Porterage and Africa’s Transport Gap: Evidence from Ghana, Malawi and South Africa
Consanguineous Marriage among the Fulani
The Fulani are a broad ethnic category of nomadic and seminomadic pastoralists and agropastoralists living in the semiarid Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa. The Fulani are patrilineal, patrilocal, and moderately polygynous, with arranged first marriages accompanied by the payment of bridewealth, ideally in the form of cattle. Consanguineous marriage is frequent, with first or second cousin marriage preferred. In this paper we present data on le…
Intergenerational relations and the power of the cell phone: Perspectives on young people’s phone usage in sub-Saharan Africa
Cell phones present new forms of sociality and new possibilities of encounter for young people across the globe. Nowhere is this more evident than in sub-Saharan Africa where the scale of usage, even among the very poor, is remarkable. In this paper we reflect on the inter-generational encounters which are embedded in young people’s cell phone interactions, and consider the wider societal implications, not least the potential for associated shift…
Disciplining anthropological demography
This study furthers the epistemological development of anthropological demography, and its role in understanding the demography of Europe. Firstly we situate anthropological demography against the context of an evolving world of research in which boun
Children and young people as producers of knowledge
The 1989 UN Convention on the Rights of the Child represented a particularly important way-mark for child-centred studies because it affirmed children's rights to participation: the right to give a
The interview as narrative ethnography: Seeking and shaping connections in qualitative research
Acts of counter-subjectification in qualitative research are always present but are often submerged in accounts that seek to locate the power of subjectification entirely with the researcher. This is particularly so when talking to people about sensitive issues. Based on an interview-based study of infertility and reproductive disruption among British Pakistanis in Northeast England, we explore how we, as researchers, sought and were drawn into v…
Navigating New Socio-Demographic Landscapes: Using Anthropological Demography to Understand the ‘Persistence’ of High and Early Fertility Among British Pakistanis
Everybody is moving on: Infertility, relationality and the aesthetics of family among British-Pakistani Muslims
It is now widely recognised that experiences of infertility are socially and culturally contingent. Drawing on reproductive narratives of 108 British-Pakistani Muslims living in Northeast England (collected from 2007 to 2010), we show that subjective experiences of infertility in this population can take many forms, from 'straightforward' childlessness to concerns about inability to fulfil a range of reproductive expectations, desires and obligat…
Person, Place, and Knowledge in the Conservation of the Saimaa Ringed Seal
There is a strong connection between people's knowledge of nature and their relationship to place. Local environmental knowledge is multifaceted and influenced by changing social and economic circumstances that affect the way people come to know and relate to nature. A case study from Finland demonstrates how locality, personhood, and environmental perceptions cohere to challenge conservation practices. In this instance, local people fully uphold…
Pastoralists, agropastoralists and migrants: Interactions between fertility and mobility in northern Burkina Faso
Seasonal rural to urban migration of young men is becoming an increasingly important part of the rural economy of the West African Sahel, yet little is known about how the short-term contact of men with urban centres might affect reproductive decisions and outcomes in sending areas. In northern Burkina Faso, substantial variation in short-term migration rates of young Fulani men to cities provides an opportunity to explore interactions between mi…
Seasonal labour migration strategies in the Sahel: Coping with poverty or optimising security
An erratum for this article has been published in International Journal of Population Geography 6(2), 2000, 179. Much research on seasonal labour migration in the Sahel has come up with contradictory findings about the relationships between poverty, underdevelopment and such migration. Many of the contradictions stem from the fact that the heterogeneous nature of Sahelian society both in terms of production system and ethnicity has not been fully…
Pastoralists, agropastoralists and migrants: Interactions between fertility and mobility in northern Burkina Faso
Seasonal rural to urban migration of young men is becoming an increasingly important part of the rural economy of the West African Sahel, yet little is known about how the short-term contact of men with urban centres might affect reproductive decisions and outcomes in sending areas. In northern Burkina Faso, substantial variation in short-term migration rates of young Fulani men to cities provides an opportunity to explore interactions between mi…
Consanguineous Marriage among the Fulani
The Fulani are a broad ethnic category of nomadic and seminomadic pastoralists and agropastoralists living in the semiarid Sahel region of sub-Saharan Africa. The Fulani are patrilineal, patrilocal, and moderately polygynous, with arranged first marriages accompanied by the payment of bridewealth, ideally in the form of cattle. Consanguineous marriage is frequent, with first or second cousin marriage preferred. In this paper we present data on le…
Fulani on the Move: Seasonal Economic Migration in the Sahel as a Social Process
Examines seasonal economic migration in the Sahel region in Africa from a sociological perspective. Methodological issues concerning the study; Description of spatial mobility and migration among the Fulani tribe; Examination of the concept of exode within an economic framework
Networks of nomads: Negotiating access to health resources among pastoralist women in Chad
Health resources among pastoralist groups are strongly gendered. While certain types of health resources fall within the female domain (home-based treatment, caring and supportive roles, and knowledge surrounding particular reproductive conditions) access to most outside health practitioners, treatments and knowledge is controlled largely by men. For pastoralist women, this means that actions taken during illness episodes depend largely on the na…
Real” Poachers and Predators: Shades of Meaning in Local Understandings of Threats to Fisheries
This article explores the idea of multiple and contested notions of nature, natural resource management, and the implications for local involvement with conservation, within the context of attitudes toward poachers and other predators of fish in the Nemunas Delta area of Lithuania. Qualitative research methods are used to elicit local understandings of threats to fishing livelihoods and to unravel the ambiguities surrounding people's perceptions …
Power Relations in Participatory Research and Community Development: A Case Study from Northern England
This paper explores power relations within a participatory health and social needs project that took place in a South Asian community in northern England. The project involved a number of different individuals and agencies, each of which began with a rather different combination of interests, agendas, resources, and power bases. Drawing on detailed observations made during the project, together with a series of evaluation interviews, we explore t…
Flexibility in Domestic Organization and Seasonal Migration among the Fulani of Northern Burkina Faso
Migration patterns among the Fulani of Burkina Faso have changed over recent decades from predominant transhumance, involving whole families, to seasonal rural-to-urban labour migration of young men. This article uses a combination of quantitative and qualitative data to examine the relationships between the new forms of migration and domestic organization. Specifically, it asks the following questions: (1) How do households accommodate the tempo…
The political culture of poaching: A case study from northern Greece
Disciplining anthropological demography
This study furthers the epistemological development of anthropological demography, and its role in understanding the demography of Europe. Firstly we situate anthropological demography against the context of an evolving world of research in which boun
Urban–rural Contrasts in Explanatory Models and Treatment-Seeking Behaviours for Stroke in Tanzania
Stroke is an emerging problem in sub-Saharan Africa, about which little is known since most research to date has been based on retrospective, hospital-based studies. This anthropological work, designed to complement a large community-based project on stroke incidence, focuses on local understandings and treatment-seeking behaviours in urban (Dar-es-Salaam) and rural (Hai) areas of Tanzania. Semi-structured interviews ( n =80) were conducted with …
Liminal Spaces: Changing Inter-Generational Relations among Long-Term Liberian Refugees in Ghana
This paper reports on changing inter-generational relations among long-term Liberian refugees in the Buduburam settlement \ncamp in Ghana. Four months of fieldwork were conducted in the settlement, using a range of qualitative methods to elicit emic \nunderstandings of the nature and causes of changes in inter-generational relations: focus groups, individual interviews, participant \nobservation, and diary-keeping by refugees. Various aspects of …
Linkages between Livelihood Opportunities and Refugee-Host Relations: Learning from the Experiences of Liberian Camp-based Refugees in Ghana
This paper combines recent livelihoods approaches to refugee studies with a social resilience framework to explore the interlinkages between refugee-host relations and refugee coping strategies in the Buduburam camp in Ghana. The reported experiences of camp residents and of the people with whom they interact in their efforts to make a living (NGO staff, government officials, traders etc.) illustrate the complex interplay between personal network…
Person, Place, and Knowledge in the Conservation of the Saimaa Ringed Seal
There is a strong connection between people's knowledge of nature and their relationship to place. Local environmental knowledge is multifaceted and influenced by changing social and economic circumstances that affect the way people come to know and relate to nature. A case study from Finland demonstrates how locality, personhood, and environmental perceptions cohere to challenge conservation practices. In this instance, local people fully uphold…
Doing it right?’: Working with young researchers in Malawi to investigate children, transport and mobility
This paper explores involving children in Malawi in research about young people, mobility and transport, respecting their rights of participation, education, and protection from exploitation. The Malawi study forms one component of a research project taking place in three sub-Saharan African countries. A foundation of the larger project was the conviction that children are experts on their own lives; therefore seeking children's views was essenti…
Saving lives, preserving livelihoods: Understanding risk, decision-making and child health in a food crisis
The purpose of this paper is to analyse household decision-making regarding resource allocation in the aftermath of a food crisis in rural Niger. International attention had resulted in humanitarian agencies launching emergency nutrition programmes to alleviate persistently high levels of acute child malnutrition. We conducted participant observation, 93 in-depth interviews, 15 focus groups, 44 feeding and illness histories for children under 5, …
The social context of childcare practices and child malnutrition in Niger's recent food crisis
In 2004-05, Niger suffered a food crisis during which global attention focused on high levels of acute malnutrition among children. In response, decentralised emergency nutrition programmes were introduced into much of southern Niger. Child malnutrition, however, is a chronic problem and its links with food production and household food security are complex. This qualitative, anthropological study investigates pathways by which children are rende…
Where dogs, ghosts and lions roam: Learning from mobile ethnographies on the journey from school
This paper draws on mobility research conducted with children in three countries: Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. It has two interlinked aims: to highlight the potential that mobile interviews can offer in research with young people, especially in research contexts where the main focus is on mobility and its impacts, and to contribute empirical evidence regarding the significance of everyday mobility to young people's lives and future life chance…
Children as Research Collaborators: Issues and Reflections from a Mobility Study in Sub‐Saharan Africa
This paper reflects on issues raised by work with children in an ongoing child mobility study in three sub‐Saharan African countries: Ghana, Malawi and South Africa. There are now 70 school pupils of varying ages involved in the project, but the paper is particularly concerned with the participation of those children 14 years and under. We examine the significant ethical issues associated with working with younger child researchers, and linked qu…
Moving young lives: Mobility, immobility and inter-generational tensions in urban Africa
Can arts projects improve young people's wellbeing? A social capital approach
Community arts projects are widely believed to have positive impacts on health, wellbeing and social inclusion. Such beliefs underpinned the UK Government-funded SingUp programme for children. Drawing on data from participant observation, extended interviews, focus groups and a questionnaire survey, we examine the experiences of children in three SingUp choirs. We focus specifically on social and emotional wellbeing as they relate to social capit…
Proposing love on the way to school: Mobility, sexuality and youth transitions in South Africa
Young people's daily mobility in sub-Saharan Africa remains largely invisible and under-researched. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from the Child Mobility Project in South Africa, we show how young people's daily journeys (to school and other places) shape, and are shaped by, the possibility of sexual encounters. Young women are seen to be at risk of sexual violence as they travel around their neighbourhoods and fears of sexual viol…
Mobility, surveillance and control of children and young people in the everyday: Perspectives from sub-Saharan Africa
Surveillance of children and young people in non-Western contexts has received little attention in the literature. In this paper we draw principally on our research in one African country, Malawi, to examine the ways in which their independent travel is shaped by (usually adult-directed) surveillance and control in diverse urban and rural contexts. Surveillance is interpreted very broadly, because our empirical data indicates a range of practices…
Mobility, education and livelihood trajectories for young people in rural Ghana: A gender perspective
This paper examines the gendered implications of Africa's transport gap (the lack of cheap, regular and reliable transport) for young people in rural Ghana, with particular reference to the linkages between restricted mobility, household work demands, access to education and livelihood potential. Our aim is to show how mobility constraints, especially as these interact with household labour demands, restrict young people's access to education and…
Out of the reach of children? Young people's health-seeking practices and agency in Africa's newly-emerging therapeutic landscapes
Despite a dominant view within Western biomedicine that children and medicines should be kept apart, a growing literature suggests that children and adolescents often take active roles in health-seeking. Here, we consider young people's health-seeking practices in Ghana: a country with a rapidly-changing therapeutic landscape, characterised by the recent introduction of a National Health Insurance Scheme, mass advertising of medicines, and increa…
Sociology (40 works) · Political science (31 works) · Economic growth (27 works) · Economics (27 works) · Geography (25 works) · Medicine (22 works) · Business (17 works) · Psychology (16 works) · Social science (15 works) · Gender Studies (12 works)