Managerial relations in Kenyan health care

Empathy and the limits of governmentality

Bibliographic Data

ID2252839
AuthorsHannah Brown (0000-0001-7933-3024, Department of Anthropology; Durham University; Dawson Building, South Road Durham DH1 3LE UK)
Year2016
Volume22
Issue3
Pages591-609
Publication date2016-09-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of the Royal Anthropological Institute (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1359-0987 • E-ISSN: 1467-9655
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/1467-9655.12448
OpenAlexW2566333366
LanguageEN
Citations received11
References cited42

This article describes relationships between a team of mid-level government health managers working in a rural Kenyan district and those whom they managed: health workers based at rural health facilities. In this context, managerial expertise was heavily informed by personal biography and a moral obligation to empathize with the difficult working conditions and familial responsibilities of junior staff. Management should be studied seriously in anthropology, as a powerful social and bureaucratic form. This focus must extend beyond a concern with tactics and technologies of governance to consider how modalities of managerial expertise are also shaped by biography, intersubjectivity, and professional identity

Ethnography · Ethnology · Governmentality · Humanities · Kenya · Political science · Politics · Sociology · Anthropological Studies and Insights · Anthropology · Foucault, Power, and Ethics · Global Health and Surgery · Law · Philosophy

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