Caregiving in Crisis

Fatherhood Refashioned by Sierra Leone's Ebola Epidemic

Bibliographic Data

ID2288948
AuthorsKristen E Mclean (0000-0002-3733-6953, International Studies Program College of Charleston, corresponding author)
Year2020
Volume34
Issue2
Pages227-242
Publication date2020-06-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueMedical Anthropology Quarterly (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0745-5194 • E-ISSN: 1548-1387
PublisherWiley (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1111/maq.12556
PMID31651046
OpenAlexW2982174223
LanguageEN
Citations received8
References cited35

In much of the literature on Sierra Leone, young men have been recognized for perpetrating violence or resisting authority. This characterization extended into the Ebola crisis, as young men were depicted as "resisting" public health measures. In contrast, little scholarship has focused on men's roles as caregivers during the epidemic. This article draws on ethnographic research conducted between 2014 and 2016 in eastern Sierra Leone to demonstrate how men contributed to caregiving. Findings reveal that when men were unable to care via established means, they improvised new ways to care for their families, which included: paid labor in Ebola treatment facilities; protecting their families from risk of infection; and hands-on nurturing. By focusing on these diverse types of male caregiving, this article challenges the ways in which "care" and "women" are often neatly linked and calls for a rethinking of stereotypes associating African men with violence

Criminology · Ebola virus · Ethnography · Outbreak · Political science · Scholarship · Sierra leone · Socioeconomics · Sociology · Anthropology · Gender Studies · Gender, Security, and Conflict · Law · Medicine · Migration, Health and Trauma · Viral Infections and Outbreaks Research · Virology

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