On August 5, 2014, Nancy Writebol became the second American to be evacuated to Atlanta from Liberia for Ebola treatment. Accompanied by police and FBI escorts from Dobbins Air Reserves base, Writebol was met by several attendants at the Emory University Hospital on Clifton Road. The ride to the hospital, while described by authorities as... Continue Reading →
Facebook reminded me that streets have names: a dispatch from Freetown
When I was in Bo on August 15, 2017, I received a reminder on Facebook that I had a appeared on Democracy Now three years ago, with Laurie Garrett and Lawrence Gostin, to talk about the then escalating Ebola crisis in West Africa. During her epic screed -- it nearly left me speechless, that's how... Continue Reading →
“It don’t take a semiotician…” Or, what we talk about when we talk about bush meat.
This weekend, Newsweek published a relatively controversial article about the recent Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Here’s the cover:Let’s just say it’s not exactly an original piece of journalism either.I found myself frustrated not only by the cover and the article, but also by the editor-in-chief’s condescending response to his critics:@texasinafrica radical suggestion: put twitter down.... Continue Reading →
On gender, the case data and why an anthropologist cares
Last night, I was talking to a reporter with the Washington Post about gender and Ebola. She contacted me because she saw a tweet I wrote asking about sex disaggregated data for the outbreak. None of my 'Ebola tweeps' -- some of them data wonks -- knew of any good sources. I looked at the ministry of... Continue Reading →
On the off chance that war doesn’t change everything: more on Ebola
I’m trying not to make my commentary about the current Ebola outbreak about representation, but I’ve been a bit troubled by the political analyses accompanying the epidemiological and health systems ones. Specifically, I want to talk a bit about how Liberia’s and Sierra Leone’s civil wars have been deployed by these analysts to understand the response... Continue Reading →
On Ebola and the pathological movements of Others
This morning, I woke up to two emails about the most recent NYT article about the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Having worked in Sierra Leone on a range of health issues, I have been a recipient of these kinds of messages at least a few times a week. I'll just comment on this article because it... Continue Reading →
Ethnographic Emergency 