Screening Charity Recipients
Health Philanthropy, Medical Diagnosis, and Kidney Disease Prevention in Sri Lanka
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3653243 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Upul Kumara Wickramasinghe, Upul Wickramasinghe (0000-0001-5446-4298, Durham University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 1-29 |
| Publication date | 2023-09-27 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Medicine Anthropology Theory (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2405-691X • E-ISSN: 2405-691X |
| Publisher | Edinburgh University Library (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.17157/mat.10.3.7764 |
| OpenAlex | W4387377876 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 32 |
Over the last several decades, epidemics of chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology (CKDu) have appeared in Mesoamerica, North Africa, and South Asia. Drawing on 14 months of ethnographic fieldwork in a CKDu-affected village in Sri Lanka, I explore how one CKDu 'hotspot' came into being following population screening interventions by a community development organisation, a philanthropic foundation, and a university research group. While the production of test results proved vital to the mobilisation of further research and public health resources for the community, this ethnography reveals philanthropy could be seen to have shaped by screening as much as screening was seen to have influenced by philanthropy. The example of medical screening and philanthropic interventions in Ginnoruwa illustrates how bioindicators of failing kidney function became a key metric for demarcating the community into populations of the deserving (or not so deserving) poorly, which in turn helped to create the pattern of disease prevalence and concentration that led to the community being designated a 'hotspot'. In Ginnoruwa, philanthropy and screening did not operate independently but constituted a novel hybrid, which I refer to as 'philanthropic science
Disease · Economic growth · Environmental health · Ethnography · Ethnology · Kidney disease · Pathology · Political science · Population · Psychological intervention · Public health · Sociology · South asia · Sri lanka · Anthropology · Global Public Health Policies and Epidemiology · Healthcare Systems and Reforms · Medicine · Nursing
The new production of knowledge
Monsoon uncertainties, hydro-chemical infrastructures, and ecological time in Sri Lanka
Disquieting Gifts
Trading Futures
Informed Refusal
Glyphosate, Hard Water and Nephrotoxic Metals
Is Merit in the Milk Powder? Pursuing Puñña in contemporary Sri Lanka
Sociology of diagnosis
Searching for CKDu
Tasting toxicity
Introduction
Between the Practical and the Academic
Cultural dimensions of hot, cold and sema in Sinhalese health culture
Philanthronationalism
Compassion without pity
Articulation of physical and social bodies in Kerala
Constructing an Indian Ethnosociology
Political Economy of Epidemic Kidney Disease in Sri Lanka
Detecting Diabetes Risk
Pathways, intersections, and hotspots
Colour and Heat in South Indian Ritual
Describing chronic kidney disease of unknown origin
Suicides, poisons and the materially possible
Material Proximities and Hotspots
When the state and your kidneys fail
The Impulse of Philanthropy
The rise of surveillance medicine
Potentializing Newborn Screening
Drinking water and chronic kidney disease of unknown aetiology in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka
Social Justice as Epidemic Control
Suicide and the 'Poison Complex
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 2 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |