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Research paper
“A Woman’s Degree Must End in the Kitchen”: Expectations of Women in the Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo
This study draws on a qualitative approach to explore how adolescents perceive women’s and men’s roles in marriage and family life. A sample of 56 boys and girls aged 16–20 from two urban and two rural high schools in South…
Research paper
Crisis responses, opportunity, and public authority during Covid-19’s first wave in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and South Sudan
Discussions on African responses to Covid-19 have focused on the state and its international backers. Far less is known about a wider range of public authorities, including chiefs, humanitarians, criminal gangs, and armed groups. This paper investigates how the pandemic…
Blog
What explains popular resistance to Ebola humanitarian responses in the DRC?
The humanitarian response to the DRC’s Ebola health emergency between 2018-20 was met with popular resistance by local populations, drawing attention to the perceived failures of humanitarian responses in the country over decades. To declare Ebola a health disaster was…
Research paper
Covid-19 and research in conflict-affected contexts: distanced methods and the digitalisation of suffering
This research note explores the pressing ethical challenges associated with increased online platforming of sensitive research on conflict-affected settings since the onset of Covid-19. We argue that moving research online and the ‘digitalisation of suffering’ risks reducing complexity of social…
Research paper
Friendship, kinship and social risk management strategies among pastoralists in Karamoja, Uganda
This paper describes risk-pooling friendships and other social networks among pastoralists in Karamoja, Uganda. Social networks are of critical importance for risk management in an environment marked by volatility and uncertainty. Risk management or risk pooling mainly takes the form of…
Research paper
Re-conceptualizing sustainable urban sanitation in Uganda: why the roots of ‘Slumification’ must be dealt with
Country-wide urbanization in Uganda has continued amidst institutional challenges. Previous water and sanitation interventions have not addressed underlying issues of poorly managed urbanization, which is linked to low productivity, urban poverty, unemployment, limited capacity to plan and offer basic services.…
Research paper
COVID-19 information dissemination in Uganda: Perspectives from sub-national health workers
In this study, an electronic survey was implemented to provide insights about the dissemination and utilisation of information and evidence related to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic by health workers engaged at sub-national levels of the Ugandan health system. The use…
Briefing
From Biolegitimacy to Antihumanitarianism: Understanding People’s Resistance to Ebola Responses in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
Despite the devastating impact of the Ebola pandemic which emerged in eastern DRC’s North Kivu in 2018, local populations seemed skeptical about its existence. This led to significant local resistance to the medical response, including armed attacks and violence, which…
Background report
Crise foncière et réponses des acteurs en République Démocratique du Congo fr
À l’Est de la République démocratique du Congo, le foncier est un réceptacle de violence, participant structurellement à la fragilité de la cohésion sociale. Bien que l’État congolais, les acteurs non étatiques et les bailleurs de fonds se soient engagés…
Research paper
A qualitative study of the development and utilization of health facility-based immunization microplans in Uganda
In 2006, Uganda adopted the Reaching Every District strategy with the goal of attaining at least 80% coverage for routine immunizations in every district. The development and utilization of health facility/district immunization microplans is the key to the strategy. A…
Background report
Roadblocks ‘at the rhythm of the country’: Predation and beyond in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo
This report analyses the phenomenon of roadblocks in South Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). Departing from a socio-anthropological approach, the report argues that roadblocks are sites where a variety of state and non-state actors interact with each…
Research paper
Aguu: From Acholi Post War Street Youth and Children to ‘Criminal Gangs’ in Modern Day Gulu City, Uganda
This paper analyses the origin and evolution of the Aguu, a group of street youth/children labelled as a criminal gang operating in the streets of Gulu, Uganda. Based on a series of interviews, focus group discussions, participant observations, archival work…
Research paper
Provider love in an informal settlement: Men’s relationships with providing women and implications for HIV in Kampala, Uganda
This study reports on data from an ethnography (2016–2019) with low-income men in urban Uganda. This study uses gender and power theory to describe how men’s relationships with female sex workers in an informal settlement in urban Kampala, Uganda are…
Research paper
Schistosomiasis messaging in endemic communities: Lessons and implications for interventions from rural Uganda, a rapid ethnographic assessment study
This study used a rapid ethnographic assessment to investigate sources, nature and perception of schistosomiasis-related health information in three lake-shore communities in Eastern Uganda. Through transect walks, observations, interviews and focus groups, the authors found that although the main source…
Research paper
The Framing of Malnutrition by Parliamentarians in Uganda
The quest for political commitment to reducing malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa draws attention to the role of national parliamentarians. Whereas parliamentarians have the authority to ratify legislation, monitor policies and budgets and transform behaviour, little is known about how malnutrition…
Research paper
Antibiotic stories: a mixed-methods, multi-country analysis of household antibiotic use in Malawi, Uganda and Zimbabwe
As concerns about the prevalence of infections that are resistant to available antibiotics increase, attention has turned toward the use of these medicines both within and outside of formal healthcare settings. This article analyses findings from mixed-methods anthropological studies of…
Research paper
Antibiotic ‘entanglements’: health, labour and everyday life in an urban informal settlement in Kampala, Uganda
Our ethnographic research documents the ways that antibiotics have become a key part of everyday life for precariously employed urban day-wage workers living in a large informal settlement in Kampala, Uganda. We found that for many people, their daily work…
Research paper
The Ambiguity Imperative: “Success” in a Maternal Health Program in Uganda
Global health programs are compelled to demonstrate impact on their target populations. We study an example of social franchising – a popular healthcare delivery model in low/middle-income countries – in the Ugandan private maternal health sector. The discrepancies between the…
Book chapter
From violent conflict to slow violence: climate change and post-conflict recovery in Karamoja, Uganda
In literature examining climate change as a potential factor in violent conflict, violence is generally conceived as a readily-apparent, time-bound event. Conversely, the ontologies of slow violence emphasize the insidious ways in which environmental change can, itself, impart violence. This…
Research paper
Geographies of Unease: Witchcraft, Mobility and Insecurity in an African Borderland
This thesis explores processes of transitional justice as post-war social repair. It interrogates the multifarious quests through which Lugbara people of north-west Uganda seek to rebuild their intimate relationships and social lives, with recourse to explanations and therapies for suffering…
Research paper
Unsafe “crossover-use” of chloramphenicol in Uganda: importance of a One Health approach in antimicrobial resistance policy and regulatory action
Since the introduction of antibiotics into mainstream health care, resistance to these drugs has become increasingly widespread. Policy decisions to mitigate the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) are hampered by a lack of surveillance data on antibiotic availability and use…
Research paper
Determining the acceptability of a novel One Health vaccine for Rift Valley Fever prior to phase II/III clinical trials in Uganda
Several vaccine candidates for Rift Valley Fever (RVF) are in development for use in humans. A promising candidate, ChAdOx1 RVF vaccine, has been developed for use in both humans and animals, and has undergone field trials in livestock in Kenya.…
Research paper
A trans-scalar approach to peacebuilding and transitional justice: Insights from the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Drawing on qualitative data from more than a year of research in the DRC, I argue that while a trans-scalar approach was taken to end violence, it was not applied to transitional justice initiatives. The result was a negative, rather…
Research paper
Perceptions of ebola virus disease among the bambuti hunter group: a mixed-methods study
The second largest Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic occurred in the DRC from 2018–20. The Bambuti, a hunter population in the Ituri Forest of the DRC, may be vulnerable to the zoonotic spread of EVD due to their frequent handling…
Policy document
South Sudan Spontaneous Refugee Returnees December 2021
This overview from UNHCR and the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (RRC) presents details about the state of South Sudanese refugees in the region, and specifically, about their patterns of returnees in late 2021.
Research paper
Knowledge and Perceptions on Menstrual Hygiene Management Among School-Going Adolescent Girls in South Sudan
This article draws on grounded theory and ethnographic fieldwork approaches and applies a political ecology of adolescent health (PEAH) framework to examine how school-going adolescent girls and their communities perceive sexual and reproductive health education (SRHE) and menstrual hygiene management…
Research paper
Sudan’s political marketplace in 2021: Public and political finance, the Juba agreement and contests
This paper examines the continuities and changes in Sudan’s political economy and political marketplace since the popular uprising in 2019 and the subsequent formation of a military-civilian transitional government.
Blog
The ‘real politics’ of taxation in post-revolutionary Sudan
Matthew Benson and, Raga Makawi describe Sudan's tax system and plans to search for domestic tax revenue to respond to economic, political and social uncertainty.
Report
Assessment of communication, community engagement and accountability in Sudan
An assessment of response-wide communication, community engagement and accountability (CCEA) work with the affected population in Sudan.
Citizens, custodians, and villains: Environmentality and the politics of difference in Senegal’s community forests
This paper situates environmental subjectivities as a constituent part of the politics of identity, property, and authority, drawing on feminist theories of subjectivity and the framework of articulating identity. Through an ethnographic investigation of community forest management in central Senegal,…
Diagnosing Diabetes, Diagnosing Colonialism: An Ethnography of the Classification and Counting of a Senegalese Metabolic Disease
This article explores the top-down production of the statistics frequently circulated in global health. These data must first originate in a place like the public hospital in Saint-Louis, Senegal, in doctor’s offices and laboratories and medical archives.
Displacement in Casamance, Senegal: lessons (hopefully) learned, 2000–2019
The paper reflects on fieldwork conducted since 2000 with displaced communities in Lower and Middle Casamance, Senegal, amid West Africa’s arguably longest running civil conflict. While this is a small conflict in a geographically confined space, Casamance presents a microcosm…
‘Latent’ surplus populations and colonial histories of drought, groundnuts, and finance in Senegal
This article draws on Marx’s concept of ‘latent’ surplus populations to trace out and explain parallels between IBAI and colonial interventions in Senegal’s groundnut basin. Approaching the question in this way, the article highlights the long-run historical co-production and interdependence…
Participating in a vaccine trial for COVID-19 in Senegal: trust and information
This research aims to understand the level and determinants of people’s willingness to participate in a vaccine trial for COVID-19 in Senegal.
Research paper
Progress in the face of cuts: a qualitative Nigerian case study of maintaining progress towards universal health coverage after losing donor assistance
In the coming years, about a dozen middle-income countries are excepted to transition out of development assistance for health (DAH) based on their economic growth. This anticipated loss of external funds at a time when there is a need for…
Research paper
Qualitative exploration of health system response to COVID-19 pandemic applying the WHO health systems framework: Case study of a Nigerian state
Health systems have an important role in a multi-sector response to pandemics, as there are already concerns that COVID-19 will significantly divert limited health care resources. This study appraised the readiness and resilience of the Nigerian health system to the…
