I have wide-ranging research interests in the anthropology of global health and medical humanitarianism. This includes the following:

Legacies of War

With funding from DFID (2012-2014), AHRC (2016-2019) and ESRC (2020-Present), I co-designed a project with colleagues from LSE and Gulu University to document trajectories of return for children that were abducted by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) from internal displacement camps between the late 1980s and 2004. By combining historically informed ethnographic research with the systematic follow-up of returnees over time, our approach is enabling us to reflect on (i) taken-for-granted concepts in social analysis such as resilience and vulnerability; (ii) the enduring challenges of return, including social exclusion of women (often through accusations of witchcraft); (iii) the replication of LRA hierarchies in peace time, with profound impacts on socio-economic trajectories of children born of war; and (iv) the legacies of humanitarian assistance.

Epidemics

Public authority during epidemics

Comparative, collaborative ethnographic fieldwork carried out in parts of Sierra Leone (2016-2019) and Uganda (2019-Present) is focusing on the complex relationship between formal, informal, parallel and hybrid authorities during outbreaks of Ebola and COVID-19. In so doing, research with colleagues from Njala University, Gulu University, LSE and IDS, Sussex has foregrounded socio-political dynamics that might otherwise remain hidden from view. Such work is helping to shed light on how, and why, ostensibly similar policy measures are implemented, experienced, and perceived in different ways, whilst also enabling us to investigate the ongoing militarisation of global public health in border regions.

Responding to epidemics in real time

The 2013-2016 Ebola epidemic in West Africa foregrounded the acute limitations of a ’one size fits all’ approach to prevention and control. As PI of the Ebola Response Anthropology Platform, I oversaw a programme of work enabling anthropologists from the UK and Sierra Leone to move beyond this narrow framing. We  provided clear, practical advice to UN and bilateral agencies about how to engage with crucial socio-cultural  and political dimensions of the epidemic and thereby build locally-appropriate interventions. The endeavour to provide a co-ordinated, adaptive and iterative response to the West Africa Ebola epidemic subsequently generated new ways of linking evidence to policy in real time. It led to the creation of the Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform (https://www.socialscienceinaction.org/), includng regional hubs in Central and East Africa (https://www.socialscienceinaction.org/regional-hub/central-and-east-africa/) and West Africa (https://www.socialscienceinaction.org/regional-hub/west-africa/). Our work now involves working on current and protracted crises relating to the intersections of war, conflict, food insecurity, forced displacement, climate change and epidemics (including mpox, COVID-19, marburg, cholera). 

Neglected Tropical Diseases

I have carried out research on NTDs in Sudan, Uganda and Tanzania. This comparative research has shown how mass drug administration (MDA) is promoted as a technically effective, context-free and morally appropriate response to aspects of grinding poverty. Developing Ferguson’s ‘anti-politics’ thesis, it has also revealed the multiple ways in which normative ideas about global health programmes have been used to set aside social and biological evidence, with counter-productive consequences.  The work has foregrounded the need for a critically engaged, biosocial approach to the control of NTDs, while also identifying specific ways in which policies might be refined to respond to the socio-political challenges of implementing MDA for NTD control. Together, these findings have promoted debates in The Lancet, The House of Lords, and Times Higher – see https://www.timeshighereducation.com/features/unwanted-side-effects/2004130.article. The work is ongoing.