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Flexibility in return, reconstruction and livelihoods in displaced villages in Casamance, Senegal
The paper argues that livelihoods research in situations of violent conflict and its aftermath can contribute to geographical understandings of flexibility. Such settings paradoxically demand greater flexibility from economic actors while imposing new and sometimes severe constraints on them to…
Journal Article
The anti-politics of health reform: household power relations and child health in rural Senegal
This article employs ethnographic evidence from rural Senegal to explore two dimensions of health sector reform. First, it makes the case that health reforms intersect with and exacerbate existing social, political, and economic inequalities. Second, the article explores how liberal…
Exploring the cultural context of HIV/AIDS pandemic in a Nigerian community: Implication for culture specific prevention programmes
The new face of Human Immune Virus (HIV)/ Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS) has earned its recognition as a social problem due to the associated devastating social and cultural consequences on the individual and the society at large. As such,…
Neoliberal Reform and Health Dilemmas
In this article, the author traces the links among neoliberalism, regional ecological decline, and the dynamics of therapeutic processes in rural Senegal. By focusing on illness management in a small rural community, the article explores how economic reform is mediated…
Modern marriage, men’s extramarital sex, and HIV risk in southeastern Nigeria
For women in Nigeria, as in many settings, simply being married can contribute to the risk of contracting HIV. This article considers men’s extramarital sexual behavior in the context of modern marriage in southeastern Nigeria. The results indicate that the…
Overlaps and Disconnects in Reproductive Health Care: Global Policies, National Programs, and the Micropolitics of Reproduction in Northern Senegal
This article explores three arenas of contemporary discourse about reproductive health and family planning. Using Senegal as a case study, it highlights the significant overlaps and disconnects among global reproductive health policy, national priorities and programs, and the biopolitics of…
Journal Article
Taking chances, making choices: the tactical dimensions of “reproductive strategies” in southwestern Nigeria
Reproductive outcomes may be less a result of consciously pursued “reproductive strategies” than of other choices, and are subject to the influence not only of other individuals, but also of caprice and circumstance. Drawing on ethnographic research in southwestern Nigeria,…
Journal Article
‘The Suffering is Too Great’: Urban Internally Displaced Persons in the Casamance Conflict, Senegal
The paper addresses the dearth of studies of displaced people living in urban areas of sub-Saharan Africa through a survey of a particular group of internally displaced persons (IDPs) created by Senegal’s Casamance conflict. Analysis of survey data shows how…
Perspectives on polio and immunization in Northern Nigeria
Through the efforts of the global campaign to eradicate poliomyelitis, polio cases have declined worldwide, from 35,251 cases in 1988, to 1449 cases as of 28 October 2005. However, confirmed cases of wild polio virus continue to be reported from…
Journal Article
Traditional healers in Nigeria: perception of cause, treatment and referral practices for severe malaria.
Malaria remains one of the main causes of mortality among young children in sub-Saharan Africa. In Nigeria traditional healers play an important role in health care delivery and the majority of the population depend on them for most of their…
Journal Article
Violence and the body: somatic expressions of trauma and vulnerability during war
Drawing on ethnographic research conducted along the Sierra Leone-Guinea border during wartime, this article explores the contested nature of the body and bodily illness during times of spectacular political violence.
Discriminate biopower and everyday biopolitics: views on sickle cell testing in Dakar
Many physicians in Senegal and France, where most Senegalese sickle cell specialists are partially trained, assume that genetic testing that could imply selective abortion for people with sickle cell would run counter to the religious and cultural ethics of people…