Evidence, Ethos and Experiment

P. Wenzel Geissler teaches social anthropology at the University of Oslo and at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. He studied medical zoology in Hamburg and Copenhagen and social anthropology in Copenhagen and Cambridge. Since 1993 he has worked in western Kenya, conducting first medical research and then several years of ethnographic fieldwork. Currently he is writing an ethnography of post-colonial scientific research in Kisumu, Kenya.

• Introduction: Studying trial communities: anthropological and historical inquiries into ethos, politics and economy of medical research in AfricaP. Wenzel GeisslerThis chapter is available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of the Wellcome Trust.EngagementsChapter 1. Writing Knowledge and Acknowledgement: Possibilities in Medical ResearchSusan Reynolds WhyteChapter 2. Can one Rely on Knowledge?Marilyn StrathernChapter 3. Being 'with MRC': Infant Care and the Social Meanings of Cohort Membership in Gambia's Plural Therapeutic LandscapesMelissa Leach and James FairheadChapter 4. Contextualising Ethics in AIDS Research: or, the Morality of Knowledge Production in Ethnographic Fieldwork on ‘the Unspeakable’Hansjörg DilgerChapter 5. Testing a New Drug for Leprosy: Clofazimine and its Precursors in Ireland and Nigeria, 1944-1966John MantonChapter 6. Elucidating Ethics in Practice -- Focus on AccountabilityGeorge UlrichEvidenceChapter 7. When Physicians Meet: Local Medical Knowledge and Global Public GoodsSteven FeiermanChapter 8. The Plausibility Design, Quasi-Experiments, and Real World Research: a Case Study from the Interdisciplinary Monitoring Project for Antimalarial Combination Treatment in TanzaniaS. Patrick KachurChapter 9. Remember Bambali: Evidence, Ethics and the Co-Production of TruthAnn KellyChapter 10. Foetuses, Facts and Frictions: Insights from Ultrasound Research in TanzaniaBabette Müller-RockstrohChapter 11. Healers and Scientists: The Epistemological Politics of Research about Medicinal Plants in Tanzania or ‘Moving Away from Traditional Medicine’Stacey A. LangwickChapter 12. Parasite Lost. Remembering Modern Times with Kenyan Government Medical ScientistsP. Wenzel GeisslerChapter 13. Is the Sharia of the Doctors Killing the People? A Local Debate on Ethics and the Control of HIV/AIDS in a Rural Area in KenyaSuzette HealdPoliticsChapter 14. The Historical Interface between the State and Medical Science in Africa: Kenya’s CaseKenneth S. OmbongiChapter 15. The intimate rules of the French Coopération: Morality, Race and the Postcolonial Division of Scientific Work at the Pasteur Institute of CameroonGuillaume LachenalChapter 16. The Mosquito Taken at the Beer-Hall’: Malaria Research and Control on Zambia’s CopperbeltLyn SchumakerChapter 17. Trial Communities: HIV and Therapeutic Citizenship in West AfricaVin-Kim NguyenChapter 18. Differences in Medicine, Differences in Ethics: or, When is it Research and When is it Kidnapping or is That Even the Right Question?Luise WhiteIndex

“Each of the chapters is noteworthy. Together, they offer a promising opportunity to broaden the field of postcolonial science studies in ways that remind us how ethicality is at the heart of these encounters of science… the volume will be useful to medical anthropologists, science studies scholars, and generalist scholars of Africa and global health. Individual chapters, as well as whole sections of the book, will be particularly useful for teaching at the upper-division undergraduate or graduate levels.” • Medical Anthropology Quarterly“…a series of compelling and well written chapters…Considering the explosion of medical research in Africa in the age of global health, Evidence, ethos and experiment is a valuable and much-needed contribution to the development of multiple contextual frameworks for historical and contemporary medical research in Africa and elsewhere.” • Social Anthropology/Anthropologie sociale“The book is instructive, interesting and innovative. it draws on strong empirical work and opens up significant discussions concerning epistemological and ethical issues and will be of interest to a wide range of scholars, including medical anthropology, history, medicine, science and epidemiology.” • Tijdschrift Medische Antropologie“This is an extremely interesting and innovative collection with unusual empirical richness, with ethical and epistemological discussions cutting across anthropology, medicine, history, epidemiology and other disciplines.” • Lotte Meinert, Department of Anthropology, Aarhus University