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Background report
Understanding Framings and Perceptions of Spillover: Preventing Future Outbreaks of Bat-Borne Zoonoses?
Bats provide many ecosystem services and have intrinsic value. They also act as host reservoirs for some viruses. Several studies have linked zoonotic diseases to bats, raising questions about the risks bats pose, especially to people living close to bat…
Background report
Use of SMS-Based Surveys in the Rapid Response to the Ebola Outbreak in Liberia: Opening Community Dialogue
During an emerging health crisis like the 2014 Ebola outbreak inWest Africa, communicating with communities to learn from them and to provide timely information can be a challenge. Insight into community thinking, however, is crucial for developing appropriate communication content…
Background report
Views from Many Worlds: Unsettling Categories in Interdisciplinary Research on Endemic Zoonotic Diseases
Interdisciplinary research on zoonotic disease has tended to focus on ‘risk’ of disease transmission as a conceptual common denominator. With reference to endemic zoonoses at the livestock-human interface, we argue for considering a broader sweep of disciplinary insights from anthropology…
Background report
We Do Not Bury Dead Livestock Like Human Beings: Community Behaviors and Risk of Rift Valley Fever Virus Infection in Baringo County, Kenya
Rift Valley Fever (RVF), is a viral zoonotic disease transmitted by Aedes and Culex mosquitoes. in Kenya, its occurrence is associated with increased rains. in Baringo County, RVF was first reported in 2006-2007 resulting in 85 human cases and 5…
Background report
“We Know Who is Eating the Ebola Money!”: Corruption, the State, and the Ebola Response
Sierra Leonean production of knowledge about Ebola was, in large part, production of knowledge about “who ate the Ebola money.” This article traces people’s responses to the Ebola crisis through a number of different moments, at each point reflecting on…
Briefing
Guidance Note 2: Seeking Treatment for Cholera in Somalia and the Somali Region of Ethiopia: Contextual Factors
The purpose of this guidance note is to support UNICEF staff in understanding the contextual factors (the practices, behaviours, social norms and wider factors) that shape risks of cholera transmission, being able to separate the social and cultural factors from…
Briefing
Guidance Note 1: Contextual Factors and Risks to Cholera/AWD Transmission in Somalia and the Somali Region of Ethiopia
The purpose of this guidance note is to support UNICEF staff in understanding the contextual factors (the practices, behaviours, social norms and wider factors) that shape risks of cholera transmission, being able to separate the social and cultural factors from…
Book chapter
Taxation, Stateness and Armed Groups: Public Authority and Resource Extraction in Eastern Congo
This contribution analyses the role of taxation in the constitution of authority in the conflict-ridden eastern DRC, where numerous authorities alternately compete and collude over the right to extract resources. Taxation ranges from simple plunder, to protection rackets, to material…
Research paper
‘Living between Two Lions’: Civilian Protection Strategies during Armed Violence in the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
This article examines how civilians assess, negotiate with, and in some cases deceive armed actors in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). It demonstrates that civilians not only navigate the precarious and unpredictable conditions within armed conflict, but…
Policy document
Land Tenure in South Sudan: Does it Promote Climate Change Resilience?
The authors analyse the South Sudanese Land Act 2009 with respect to its promotion of climate change resilience. Drawing on prior work and primary data, they argue that while the 2009 Land Act does contain clauses intended to promote climate…
Background report
Statebuilding and Legitimacy: Experiences of South Sudan
Using South Sudan as a case, this report interrogates people’s perceptions of the state, focusing on sources of legitimacy that are not primarily related to service delivery. It covers the period from the onset of civil war in 1983 to…
Research paper
Dirty Things: Spiritual Pollution and Life after the Lord’s Resistance Army
Drawing on insights gleaned from ethnographic fieldwork over the last decade, we focus here on targeted research from January to August 2014 with former LRA individuals who were part of a bigger study of clients at an ex-combatant reception centre.…
Research paper
The Oughtness of Care: Fear, Stress, and Caregiving during the 2000–2001 Ebola Outbreak in Gulu, Uganda
In this article we introduce the term oughtness of care to show how caring for sick relatives was experienced in the context of the Ebola outbreak in Gulu, Uganda, in 2000–2001.
Background report
Food Security and Nutrition Vulnerability and Risk Analysis in Former Warrap and Northern Bahr el Ghazal States
The trends reported in the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) show a growing food security crisis in South Sudan, with a high proportion of people sliding into crisis in almost all parts of the country, with millions of people,…
Research paper
South Sudan’s Civil War Will Not End with a Peace Deal
In early 2017, the government of South Sudan declared that parts of the country had been hit by severe famine. This famine was another sign of the many ways in which a disastrous war was killing people. South Sudan had…
Research paper
Fettered Self-determination: South Sudan’s Narrowed Path to Secession
The interpretation of self-determination as a vote for secession shaped the state that South Sudan has become since the 2011 referendum. Self-determination, this paper argues, is a democratic political process in which citizens determine their preferred form of statehood and…
Thesis
A Gender Analysis of the Democratic Republic of Congo’s Health System Reform: An Opportune Moment to Build a Just and Inclusive Health System
This thesis examines key institutional and structural interventions and reforms in the health system of the DRC for their implications on health experienced by Congolese women from conception to beyond their reproductive years. This thesis suggests that healthcare reform efforts…
Thesis
Navigating Obstacles, Opportunities and Reforms: Women’s Lives and Livelihoods in Artisanal Mining Communities in Eastern DRC
This thesis drew upon ethnographic methods to ‘zoom in’ on the diverse and changing roles of women in artisanal mining. Over a 15-month period, the research was carried out at four mining sites: two in South Kivu (Kamituga and Nyabibwe)…
Research paper
The Transitional Justice Gap: Exploring ‘Everyday’ Gendered Harms and Customary Justice in South Kivu, DR Congo
Feminist transitional justice (TJ) has greatly contributed to the study of justice in the ruins of war, notably around prosecuting wartime rape. At the same time, scholars have observed limitations to this research agenda such as externally-driven definitions gendered harms…
Research paper
Maternal Psychological Distress and Perceived Impact on Child Feeding Practices in South Kivu, DR Congo
Maternal mental health problems are associated with poor child growth and suboptimal child feeding practices, yet little qualitative research has been conducted to understand mothers’ perceptions about how maternal mental ill health and child nutrition are related. This study among…
Research paper
Men’s perceptions of women’s reproductive health in South Sudan
This paper draws on a qualitative study (n = 52) and applies a political ecology of health framework to examine men’s perceptions of women’s reproductive health in South Sudan. The findings suggest that political practices of place making configure men’s views of…
Research paper
Policing men: militarised masculinity, youth livelihoods, and security in conflict-affected northern Uganda
Relations between militaries and masculinities—and hegemonic masculinity and the state—are well-established in the literature on gender and development. However, there is less research on how militarised masculinities relate to state governance strategies. This paper, based on qualitative research conducted in…
Briefing
The view from Gulu on Uganda’s food distribution and corona-politics
When presidential, parliamentary and local elections were slated for early 2021, the politicisation of COVID-19 food distribution was being widely discussed. In Gulu, the effects of the pandemic were felt sharply amongst those reliant on food relief. The central government’s…
Research paper
Family planning knowledge and use among women in camps for internally displaced people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo
This study describes family planning awareness and needs among internally displaced women residing in the Mugunga camps in North Kivu, eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. A cross-sectional survey of women from the Mugunga camps in March 2014 revealed that…
Research paper
Motivations of men and women for migration to artisanal and small-scale mining sites in Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo
Artisanal and small scale mining (ASM) sites in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) present livelihoods opportunities within an evolving security situation, thus offering the potential for economic and physical security. This paper presents survey data detailing reasons why men and…
Research paper
Everyday Justice for the Internally Displaced in a Context of Fragility: The Case of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC)
Bukavu is a rapidly growing city in the conflict-affected east of the Democratic Republic of Congo. It is home to large numbers of internally displaced persons (IDPs). This article looks at these IDPs and explores the strategies they use to…
Research paper
Transitional Justice and Political Economies of Survival in Post-conflict Northern Uganda
This article explores the interplay between transitional justice and ‘everyday’ political economies of survival in post-conflict Acholiland, northern Uganda. It advances two main arguments. First, that transitional justice — as part and parcel of conventional liberal peacebuilding packages — promotes…
Research paper
Community perspectives on the extent to which transactional sex is viewed as sexual exploitation in Central Uganda
Sexual exploitation violates children’s rights and exposes them to harm, but there exist differences in views of behaviour that is considered sexually exploitative, including transactional sex. This paper explores community perspectives on transactional sex and exploitation in two communities in…
Research paper
“If he could speak, he would be able to point out who does those things to him”: Experiences of violence and access to child protection among children with disabilities in Uganda and Malawi
While child protection mechanisms to prevent and respond to violence are slowly operationalised in low- and- middle-income countries, little is known about whether existing mechanisms are disability-inclusive. The aim of this study, which took place in Malawi and Kamuli district…
Research paper
“Not Taking it Will Just be Like a Sin”: Young People Living with HIV and the Stigmatization of Less-Than-Perfect Adherence to Antiretroviral Therapy
Global health priorities are being set to address questions on adherence to HIV antiretroviral therapy in adolescence. Few studies have explored young people’s perspectives on the complex host of social and relational challenges they face in dealing with their treatment…
Research paper
Fettered Self-determination: South Sudan’s Narrowed Path to Secession
The interpretation of self-determination as a vote for secession shaped the state that South Sudan has become since the 2011 referendum. Self-determination, this paper argues, is a democratic political process in which citizens determine their preferred form of statehood and…
Research paper
‘That thing of human rights’: discourse, emergency assistance, and sexual violence in South Sudan’s current civil war
One of the most widely covered aspects of the current conflict in South Sudan has been the use sexual violence by rival factions of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and other armed groups. While this has had the positive…
Research paper
Spatial accessibility to basic public health services in South Sudan
This article develops a GIS model of spatial health access metrics nationally and sub-nationally in South Sudan. Using publicly available data on health facilities, population, land cover and use, road networks and elevation, the authors found that in 2016 only…
Research paper
Poisoning at the periphery: allocating responsibility across the Uganda/South Sudan borderlands
This paper presents ethnographic evidence from three sites across the Uganda/South Sudan borderlands. At each location, procedures to identify alleged poisoners were documented. Novel voting processes were initiated by hybrid local authorities. Addressing widespread anxiety about proximate wrong-doing seemed to…
Research paper
Contesting the militarization of the places where they met: the landscapes of the western Nuer and Dinka (South Sudan)
Decades of violent conflict and elite wealth acquisition have created a common rupture in shared landscapes between communities of the western Dinka and Nuer (South Sudan). Since the government wars of the 1980s, people from both Dinka and Nuer communities…
Research paper
Charcoal power: The political violence of non-fossil fuel in Uganda
Charcoal is important in Africa due to its centrality to urbanization. Despite this, the politics of charcoal remain largely unexplored. This article asks how political power shapes charcoal production and how charcoal as an energy source shapes political power through…
