The recent Ebola epidemic ravaging the Mano river countries of Guinea,
Sierra Leone and Liberia attracts worldwide comment and interventions
on the ground. The latter are primarily undertaken by medical doctors
and healthcare specialists from, for example, Doctors Without Borders
(MSF) or the World Health Organization (WHO). This is not surprising:
ebola is, after all, a virus that causes a fatal illness. Medical doctors or
biologists are the specialists that come to mind immediately when we hear
about viruses and diseases. However, the expertise of anthropologists is
increasingly needed to better understand and respond to the epidemic.
Doctors treat sick bodies and biologists attempt to
contain viruses. Anthropologists, by contrast, do not
focus on disease or micro-organisms but on people
and illness. In doing so, they situate individuals in
context, they examine physical bodies in relation to the
Ebola: the need for
anthropological expertise
socio-cultural body of society. The current ebola crisis
needs these insights in order to debunk qualifications
by outsiders of observed social and cultural practices
surrounding the disease as ignorant or irrational at
best and Africans infected by the disease as inhuman
at worst.
In the meantime, an extensive collection of blog
posts by anthropologists on, for example, the website
of the journal Cultural Anthropology, the Ebola
fieldnotes section on the medical anthropological
website Somatosphere or the newly created Ebola
Response Anthropology Platform has become
available. Recurring themes are the spread of the
disease through burial rituals, attempts to make sense
of responses by local inhabitants towards health
interventions by state agents and members of (inter-)
national and non-governmental organizations and,
more generally, critical appraisals of reporting by
Western mainstream media. I summarize the main
contours of the debate in these three domains below.
these rhetoric of bushmeat. Even more troubling is the
political geography of ebola as illustrated by powerful
visualizations: the world starts paying attention when
ebola leaves Africa, but not so much when the virus
erupts but stays in Africa.
Having ebola stay where it is definitely makes sense
from the perspective of epidemiological containment
but also points towards an underlying issue
characterizing the socio-political background of the
affected countries. And also here, contextual and
historical understanding as offered by anthropologists
can shed some light on observed dynamics. A number
of observers have identified two related processes:
the national responses to the outbreak has been
rather militarized and the reaction of local inhabitants
to this response has often been distrustful, at times
violent with local state agents and health workers
being attacked. Why? A long history of corruption and
misus e of government officials and authority figures
marks Guinea and a similar pattern exacerbated by the
experiences of war characterizes the socio-political
landscape in Sierra Leone and Liberia. What seems like
irrational behaviour – warding off health care workers
and state officials - becomes intelligible when situated
in context. This type of behaviour makes perfect sense
when taking into account the historical experience
of war and mistreatment and is far from irrational
when considered in context. Therefore, this type of
anthropological knowledge facilitates changes in the
approach adopted, for example, by not referring to
medical facilities as ‘isolation centres’ but ‘treatment
facilities’ instead. Such a subtle change of language
makes a huge difference amidst a population all too
familiar with government-sponsored displacement and
social disruption.
The above-mentioned militaristic or purely medical
approach towards the epidemic is also at odds with
the ethics of care and the rituals of burial deemed
culturally appropriate in the affected region. Hence the
wary reactions of the local population who consider
these interventions from the outside as ignorant and
irrational in their turn. So, we are dealing here with
two poles, the local
population vs the health
care workers, who do not
understand each other.
In general, it is the task
of the anthropologist
to function as a broker
of knowledge between
cultures and facilitate
a dialogue where a
conversation seems
impossible.
burial rites have been identified by anthropologist
as a channel through which the disease spreads.
Evidently, giving the nature of the transmission
of the virus, both practices are detrimental to the
effort to contain the epidemic. Simply banning these
practices is unproductive and provokes resistance
by the local population as highlighted above. Also
here, anthropological expertise is able to mediate
between these local
belief systems and the
medical and biohazard
paradigm imposed
from the outside.
Slowly, development
agencies and health
care professionals have
come to appreciate
the usefulness of
anthropological
expertise as illustrated
by the Department
for International
Development’s (DfID)
financial support for an
anthropological platform
in response to the ebola
crisis.
“we are dealing here
with two poles, the local
population vs the health
care workers, who do not
understand each other”
In doing so,
anthropological analysis
of ‘the management
of the dead’ illustrates
that the bodies of
the deceased require
proper treatment before
and during burial in order to safeguard vital links
between the living and deceased. This often involves
a tactile relationship with the dead body infected with
ebola. Moreover, marriage arrangements at times
require bodies to be transported over long distances.
At the same time, these care-giving practices and
Bert Ingelaere
The coverage of ebola by some of Western media
lays bare the image of and interest in Africa in the
rest of the world. The spread of this killer disease is,
once again, used to associate Africa with the heart
of darkness. Generally this happens when images
of machete-wielding killers or Kalashnikov-carrying
child soldiers flood our TV and computer screens. The
violence is interpreted as wanton and senseless, tribal
and ancient. The message is thus: there is nothing
to do about it. A similar image arises with the ebola
outbreak as epitomized by a recent cover of Time
Magazine: Africans are living in a state of nature - what
else can we expect? Anthropologists have criticized
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