1 - Ebola Crisis in West Africa as the Embodiment of the World. Arguing for a Non-conventional Epistemology of Disease Aetiology
African Sociological Review,
Vol. 24 No. 1 (2020): African Sociological Review
Abstract
The recent Ebola crisis in the Mano River countries in West Africa is not only a public health problem but a social problem which results from historical processes and socioeconomic arrangements that have subtly crippled people’s agency, destroyed social cohesion and reduced opportunities for human flourishing. The embodiment of social ills as disease challenges biased-popular accounts which erase the link that exists between the spread of the virus and social structures. The national, regional and transnational tales of the Ebola epidemic cannot be undermined, because the human body disclosed the homicidal logic of social entities that have been entertaining the civilization of subtle violence in these postcolonial countries where populations are confronted with misery.
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- Abramowitz SA et al. (2016) Social science intelligence in the global Ebola response. Available at: http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140- 6736(15)60119-2.pdf (Accessed 12 August 2017).
- Adler PS and Kwon SW (2002) Social capital: prospects for a new concept. The Academy of Management Review 27: 17-40.
- Africa Region Human Development (2006) Guinea: A country status report on health and poverty: health, nutrition and population inputs for the Prsp and hipc process. Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRREGTOPEDUCATION/Resources/4446591212165766431/H_CSR_Guinea.pdf (Accessed 10 Janvier 2017).
- Akinkugbe O and Mohanoe M (2009), Public health expenditure as a determinant of health-status in Lesotho. Social Work In Public Health, 24 (1), 131-147.
- Al Paulus T (2014) Liberia: Fighting Ebola in the midst of a poor and weak healthcare delivery system. Available at: https://blogs.nd.edu/unite/2014/10/23/liberia-fighting-ebola-in-the-midst-of-a-poor-and-weak-health-care-delivery-system/ (Accessed 12 Janvier 2017).
- Arieff A and Cook N (2009) Congressional research service: Guinea’s 2008 military coup and relations with the United States. Available at: http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/13389 0.pdf (Accessed 12 Janvier 2017).
- Azétsop J (2015) Health systems sustainability, national AIDS response and public health policy in Chad: ethical and efficiency requirements for sustainable health systems. In: Peppard CZ and Vicini (eds) A Just Sustainability: Ecology, Technology, and Resource Extraction. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, pp131-144.
- Barfield, T (1997) The Dictionary of Anthropology. Malden: Blackwell Publishers. Bausch DG, Schwarz L (2014) Outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease in Guinea: Where Ecology Meets Economy. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 8/7: e3056. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4117598 /pdf/pntd.0003056.pdf (Accessed 8 May 2017).
- Bermúdez-Lugo O and Menzie WD (2015) The Ebola Virus Disease outbreak and the mineral sectors of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Available at: http:// dx.doi.org/10.3133/fs20153033 (Accessed 12 Janvier 2017).
- Besley T and Kudamatsu M (2006) Health and democracy. The American economic review, pp 313 318.
- Bokhari FA, Gai Y and Gottret P (2007) Government health expenditures and health outcomes. Health Economics. 16 (3), pp 257-273.
- Boozary AS et al. (2014) The Ebola outbreak, fragile health systems and quality as a cure. JAMA 312:1859-60.
- Bourgeois P and Scheper-Hughes N (2004 Comments). Current Anthropology 44:317-318. Chan M (2015) What this–the largest Ebola outbreak in history–tells the world: deadly pathogens exploit weak health systems. Available at: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/ebola-6-months/lesson s/en/ (Accessed 14 Janvier 2017).
- Cohn S and Kutalek R (2016) Historical Parallels, Ebola Virus Disease and Cholera: Understanding Community Distrust and Social Violence with Epidemics. PLoS Curr 26; 8. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ articles/PMC4739438/ (Accessed 10 August 2017).
- Compah-Keyeke G, Gyimah Sackey FG and Azinim MA (2013) Public Expenditure and Health Status in Ghana, Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development 4(11):88-99.
- Elliot L (2014) Ebola crisis: Global response has ‘failed miserably’ says World Bank chief. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/08/ebola-crisis-world-bank-president-jim-kim-failure (Accessed 14 Janvier 2017).
- Farag, M., et al. (2013) Health expenditure, health outcomes and the role of good governance. Int J Health Care Finance Econ 13(1): pp 33-52.
- Farmer P (2004) Anthropology of structural violence. Current Anthropology 45(3): 305-317. Farmer P (2003) Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press.
- Farmer Pet al.(2006) Structuralviolenceandclinicalmedicine.PLoSMedicine 3(10):1686- 1691.
- Fassin D (2003) The Embodiment of inequality. WMBO reports 4, special issue, 2003, S4-S9.
- Fassin D (2007) When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa. Berkley: University of California Press.
- Faye S (2014) How anthropologists help medics fight Ebola in Guinea. Available at: http:// www.scidev.net/global/cooperation/feature/anthropologists-medics- ebola-guinea. html (Accessed 14 Janvier 2017).
- Faye S (2015) L’Exceptionnalité d’Ebola et les réticences populaires en Guinée-Conakry. réflexions à partir d’une approche d’anthropologie symétrique. Available at: http://anthropologie sante.rev ues.org/1796 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
- Filmer D and Pritchett L (1999) The impact of public spending on health: does money matter? Social Science and Medicine 49(10), pp 1309-23.
- Freedman A (2014) How Nigeria and Senegal halted Ebola when other countries failed. Available at: http://mashable.com/2014/10/20/nigeria-senegal-success-in-battling-eboloutbreak/#0iYN51 vu38q3 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
- Fribaut M (2015) Ebola en Guinée: violences historiques et régimes de doute. Available at: http://anthropologiesante.revues.org/1796 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
- Galtung J (1969) Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research 6(3):167–91. Gostin LO and Friedman EA (2014) Ebola: a crisis in global health leadership. The Lancet 384: 1323 – 1325.
- Green L 2004 Comments. Current Anthropology 44:319-320.
- Harman S (2014) Ebola and the politics of a global health crisis. Available at: http://www.eir.info /2014/10/20/ebola-and-the-politics-of-a-global-health-crisis/ (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017)
- Institute of Development Studies (2015) Ebola and extractive industry. Available at: http:// opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/5854/ID562%20Online.pdf;jsessionid =72A6534EC19E3CA8425FF1717641F93B?sequence=1 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
- Heijink R, Koolman X and Westert GP (2012) Spending more money, saving more lives? The relationship between avoidable mortality and healthcare spending in 14 countries. The European Journal of Health Economics, pp 1-12.
- Hitiris T and Posnett J (1992) The determinants and effects of health expenditure in developed countries. Journal of Health Economics 11 (2), pp173-181.
- Jang SY (2012) The causes of the Sierra Leone civil war: Underlying grievances and the role of the Revolutionary United Front. Available at: http://www.e-ir.info/2012/10/25/the-causes-of-the-sierra-leone-civil-war-underlying-grievances-and-the-role-of-the-revolutionary-united-front/ (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
- Jindra M and Noret J (2011) African Funerals and Sociocultural Change. A review of Momentous Transformations across a Continent. In: Jindra et Noret J (eds.) Funerals in Africa. Explorations of a Social Phenomenon. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp16-40.
- Kraaij FVD (2015) Liberia: From the love of liberty to paradise lost. Available at: https:// openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/33835 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
- Kim JY (2014) Boosting shared prosperity. Available at: https://www.worldbank.org/ en/news/speech/2014/10/01/speech-world-bank-group-president-jim-yong-kim-howarduniversity (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
- Kickbusch I (2015) The political determinants of health—10 years on. BMJ 2015; 350 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h81 (Accessed 4 April 2018)
- Lee PT et al. (2011) An analysis of Liberia’s 2007 national health policy: Lessons for health systems strengthening and chronic disease care in poor, post- conflict countries. Available at: http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/ content/7/1/37 (Accessed 11 Janvier 2017).
- Lykes BM (2001) Human rights violations as structural violence. In: Christie DJ, Wagner RV, and Winter DDN (eds) Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology for the 21st Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, pp 158-167.
- Lynch D (2014) How to stop an Ebola outbreak: Lessons from Nigeria and Senegal. Available at: http://www.ibtimes.com/how-stop-ebola-outbreak- lessons-nigeria-senegal-1706297 (Accessed 15 Janvier 2017).
- Le Marcis F (2015) Traiter les corps comme des fagots. Production sociale de l’indifférence en contexte Ebola (Guinée). Anthropologie & Santé. Available at: http://journals.openedition.org/an thropologiesante/1907 (Accessed 7 December 2017).
- Mbembé A (1992) Provisional notes on the postcolony. Africa, Journal of the International African Institute, 62(1): 75-109.
- Moran M and Hoffman D (2014) Ebola in Perspective. Cultural anthropology. Available at: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/585-ebola-in-perspective (Accessed 12 December 2017).
- Moulin AM (2015) L’anthropologie au défi de l’Ebola. Available at: http://anthropologiesante.revu es.org/1796 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
- Munjita SM and al. (2015) Ebola virus disease in West Africa: a call to overhaul health systems in sub-Saharan Africa. International Journal of Medical Science and Public health 4: 873-877.
- Nimtz AH (2015) Ebola in Africa: A product of history, not a natural phenomenon. Available at: https://www.pambazuka.org/food-health/ebola-africa-product- history-not-natural-phenomenon (Accessed 12 December 2017).
- Ogungbenle S, Olawumi OR and Obasuyi FOT (2013), Life expectancy, public health spending and economic growth in Nigeria: A Vector Autoregressive (VAR) Model. European Scientific Journal, 9/19, pp 210-235.
- Oxfam (2015) Prioritising community engagement to strengthen health systems in Ebola recovery. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/ib-prioritising community-engagement-health-systems-ebola-recovery-090715-en.pdf (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
- Pons C (2004) La Mort est-elle une Catégorie Universelle ? Réflexions à partir de quelquesDonnées Islandaises. In: Pennec S (ed) Des Vivants et des Morts, des Constructions de la Bonne Mort. Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, pp 269-277.
- Sanders D et al. (2015) Ebola epidemic exposes the pathology of global economic and political system. Internal Journal of Health Services 45(4): 643–656.
- Schroven A (2014) Ebola in Guinea: Revealing the state of the State. Cultural Anthropology. Available at: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/587-ebola-in-guinea-revealing-the-state-of-the-state (Accessed 10 May 2017).
- Shuaib F et al. (2014) Ebola Virus Disease outbreak — Nigeria. Available at: http:// www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6339a5.htm (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
- Soumahoro S (2017) Ethnic politics and ebola Response in West Africa. Available at: https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/ethnic-politics-and-ebola-response- west-africa.pdf (Accessed 10 July 2017).
- Tafirenyika M (2014) Ebola: A wake-up call For leaders. Available at: http://www.un.org/ africarenewal/magazine/december-2014/ebola-wake-call-leaders (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
References
Abramowitz SA et al. (2016) Social science intelligence in the global Ebola response. Available at: http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lancet/PIIS0140- 6736(15)60119-2.pdf (Accessed 12 August 2017).
Adler PS and Kwon SW (2002) Social capital: prospects for a new concept. The Academy of Management Review 27: 17-40.
Africa Region Human Development (2006) Guinea: A country status report on health and poverty: health, nutrition and population inputs for the Prsp and hipc process. Available at: http://siteresources.worldbank.org/INTAFRREGTOPEDUCATION/Resources/4446591212165766431/H_CSR_Guinea.pdf (Accessed 10 Janvier 2017).
Akinkugbe O and Mohanoe M (2009), Public health expenditure as a determinant of health-status in Lesotho. Social Work In Public Health, 24 (1), 131-147.
Al Paulus T (2014) Liberia: Fighting Ebola in the midst of a poor and weak healthcare delivery system. Available at: https://blogs.nd.edu/unite/2014/10/23/liberia-fighting-ebola-in-the-midst-of-a-poor-and-weak-health-care-delivery-system/ (Accessed 12 Janvier 2017).
Arieff A and Cook N (2009) Congressional research service: Guinea’s 2008 military coup and relations with the United States. Available at: http://fpc.state.gov/documents/organization/13389 0.pdf (Accessed 12 Janvier 2017).
Azétsop J (2015) Health systems sustainability, national AIDS response and public health policy in Chad: ethical and efficiency requirements for sustainable health systems. In: Peppard CZ and Vicini (eds) A Just Sustainability: Ecology, Technology, and Resource Extraction. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, pp131-144.
Barfield, T (1997) The Dictionary of Anthropology. Malden: Blackwell Publishers. Bausch DG, Schwarz L (2014) Outbreak of Ebola Virus Disease in Guinea: Where Ecology Meets Economy. PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases 8/7: e3056. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4117598 /pdf/pntd.0003056.pdf (Accessed 8 May 2017).
Bermúdez-Lugo O and Menzie WD (2015) The Ebola Virus Disease outbreak and the mineral sectors of Guinea, Liberia, and Sierra Leone. Available at: http:// dx.doi.org/10.3133/fs20153033 (Accessed 12 Janvier 2017).
Besley T and Kudamatsu M (2006) Health and democracy. The American economic review, pp 313 318.
Bokhari FA, Gai Y and Gottret P (2007) Government health expenditures and health outcomes. Health Economics. 16 (3), pp 257-273.
Boozary AS et al. (2014) The Ebola outbreak, fragile health systems and quality as a cure. JAMA 312:1859-60.
Bourgeois P and Scheper-Hughes N (2004 Comments). Current Anthropology 44:317-318. Chan M (2015) What this–the largest Ebola outbreak in history–tells the world: deadly pathogens exploit weak health systems. Available at: http://www.who.int/csr/disease/ebola/ebola-6-months/lesson s/en/ (Accessed 14 Janvier 2017).
Cohn S and Kutalek R (2016) Historical Parallels, Ebola Virus Disease and Cholera: Understanding Community Distrust and Social Violence with Epidemics. PLoS Curr 26; 8. Available at: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/ articles/PMC4739438/ (Accessed 10 August 2017).
Compah-Keyeke G, Gyimah Sackey FG and Azinim MA (2013) Public Expenditure and Health Status in Ghana, Journal of Economics and Sustainable Development 4(11):88-99.
Elliot L (2014) Ebola crisis: Global response has ‘failed miserably’ says World Bank chief. Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/oct/08/ebola-crisis-world-bank-president-jim-kim-failure (Accessed 14 Janvier 2017).
Farag, M., et al. (2013) Health expenditure, health outcomes and the role of good governance. Int J Health Care Finance Econ 13(1): pp 33-52.
Farmer P (2004) Anthropology of structural violence. Current Anthropology 45(3): 305-317. Farmer P (2003) Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Farmer Pet al.(2006) Structuralviolenceandclinicalmedicine.PLoSMedicine 3(10):1686- 1691.
Fassin D (2003) The Embodiment of inequality. WMBO reports 4, special issue, 2003, S4-S9.
Fassin D (2007) When Bodies Remember: Experiences and Politics of AIDS in South Africa. Berkley: University of California Press.
Faye S (2014) How anthropologists help medics fight Ebola in Guinea. Available at: http:// www.scidev.net/global/cooperation/feature/anthropologists-medics- ebola-guinea. html (Accessed 14 Janvier 2017).
Faye S (2015) L’Exceptionnalité d’Ebola et les réticences populaires en Guinée-Conakry. réflexions à partir d’une approche d’anthropologie symétrique. Available at: http://anthropologie sante.rev ues.org/1796 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
Filmer D and Pritchett L (1999) The impact of public spending on health: does money matter? Social Science and Medicine 49(10), pp 1309-23.
Freedman A (2014) How Nigeria and Senegal halted Ebola when other countries failed. Available at: http://mashable.com/2014/10/20/nigeria-senegal-success-in-battling-eboloutbreak/#0iYN51 vu38q3 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
Fribaut M (2015) Ebola en Guinée: violences historiques et régimes de doute. Available at: http://anthropologiesante.revues.org/1796 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
Galtung J (1969) Violence, peace, and peace research. Journal of Peace Research 6(3):167–91. Gostin LO and Friedman EA (2014) Ebola: a crisis in global health leadership. The Lancet 384: 1323 – 1325.
Green L 2004 Comments. Current Anthropology 44:319-320.
Harman S (2014) Ebola and the politics of a global health crisis. Available at: http://www.eir.info /2014/10/20/ebola-and-the-politics-of-a-global-health-crisis/ (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017)
Institute of Development Studies (2015) Ebola and extractive industry. Available at: http:// opendocs.ids.ac.uk/opendocs/bitstream/handle/123456789/5854/ID562%20Online.pdf;jsessionid =72A6534EC19E3CA8425FF1717641F93B?sequence=1 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
Heijink R, Koolman X and Westert GP (2012) Spending more money, saving more lives? The relationship between avoidable mortality and healthcare spending in 14 countries. The European Journal of Health Economics, pp 1-12.
Hitiris T and Posnett J (1992) The determinants and effects of health expenditure in developed countries. Journal of Health Economics 11 (2), pp173-181.
Jang SY (2012) The causes of the Sierra Leone civil war: Underlying grievances and the role of the Revolutionary United Front. Available at: http://www.e-ir.info/2012/10/25/the-causes-of-the-sierra-leone-civil-war-underlying-grievances-and-the-role-of-the-revolutionary-united-front/ (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
Jindra M and Noret J (2011) African Funerals and Sociocultural Change. A review of Momentous Transformations across a Continent. In: Jindra et Noret J (eds.) Funerals in Africa. Explorations of a Social Phenomenon. New York/Oxford: Berghahn Books, pp16-40.
Kraaij FVD (2015) Liberia: From the love of liberty to paradise lost. Available at: https:// openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/handle/1887/33835 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
Kim JY (2014) Boosting shared prosperity. Available at: https://www.worldbank.org/ en/news/speech/2014/10/01/speech-world-bank-group-president-jim-yong-kim-howarduniversity (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
Kickbusch I (2015) The political determinants of health—10 years on. BMJ 2015; 350 doi: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.h81 (Accessed 4 April 2018)
Lee PT et al. (2011) An analysis of Liberia’s 2007 national health policy: Lessons for health systems strengthening and chronic disease care in poor, post- conflict countries. Available at: http://www.globalizationandhealth.com/ content/7/1/37 (Accessed 11 Janvier 2017).
Lykes BM (2001) Human rights violations as structural violence. In: Christie DJ, Wagner RV, and Winter DDN (eds) Peace, Conflict, and Violence: Peace Psychology for the 21st Century. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, pp 158-167.
Lynch D (2014) How to stop an Ebola outbreak: Lessons from Nigeria and Senegal. Available at: http://www.ibtimes.com/how-stop-ebola-outbreak- lessons-nigeria-senegal-1706297 (Accessed 15 Janvier 2017).
Le Marcis F (2015) Traiter les corps comme des fagots. Production sociale de l’indifférence en contexte Ebola (Guinée). Anthropologie & Santé. Available at: http://journals.openedition.org/an thropologiesante/1907 (Accessed 7 December 2017).
Mbembé A (1992) Provisional notes on the postcolony. Africa, Journal of the International African Institute, 62(1): 75-109.
Moran M and Hoffman D (2014) Ebola in Perspective. Cultural anthropology. Available at: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/585-ebola-in-perspective (Accessed 12 December 2017).
Moulin AM (2015) L’anthropologie au défi de l’Ebola. Available at: http://anthropologiesante.revu es.org/1796 (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
Munjita SM and al. (2015) Ebola virus disease in West Africa: a call to overhaul health systems in sub-Saharan Africa. International Journal of Medical Science and Public health 4: 873-877.
Nimtz AH (2015) Ebola in Africa: A product of history, not a natural phenomenon. Available at: https://www.pambazuka.org/food-health/ebola-africa-product- history-not-natural-phenomenon (Accessed 12 December 2017).
Ogungbenle S, Olawumi OR and Obasuyi FOT (2013), Life expectancy, public health spending and economic growth in Nigeria: A Vector Autoregressive (VAR) Model. European Scientific Journal, 9/19, pp 210-235.
Oxfam (2015) Prioritising community engagement to strengthen health systems in Ebola recovery. Available at: https://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/ib-prioritising community-engagement-health-systems-ebola-recovery-090715-en.pdf (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
Pons C (2004) La Mort est-elle une Catégorie Universelle ? Réflexions à partir de quelquesDonnées Islandaises. In: Pennec S (ed) Des Vivants et des Morts, des Constructions de la Bonne Mort. Université de Bretagne Occidentale, Brest, pp 269-277.
Sanders D et al. (2015) Ebola epidemic exposes the pathology of global economic and political system. Internal Journal of Health Services 45(4): 643–656.
Schroven A (2014) Ebola in Guinea: Revealing the state of the State. Cultural Anthropology. Available at: https://culanth.org/fieldsights/587-ebola-in-guinea-revealing-the-state-of-the-state (Accessed 10 May 2017).
Shuaib F et al. (2014) Ebola Virus Disease outbreak — Nigeria. Available at: http:// www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6339a5.htm (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).
Soumahoro S (2017) Ethnic politics and ebola Response in West Africa. Available at: https://www.cgdev.org/sites/default/files/ethnic-politics-and-ebola-response- west-africa.pdf (Accessed 10 July 2017).
Tafirenyika M (2014) Ebola: A wake-up call For leaders. Available at: http://www.un.org/ africarenewal/magazine/december-2014/ebola-wake-call-leaders (Accessed 5 Janvier 2017).