Paper short abstract:

This paper follows African scientists as they attempt to trace lively ecologies and to keep open fraught political questions about disease control and eradication.

Paper long abstract:

Medical and scientific evidence emerges between universal claims and particular experiences. This paper follows African scientists as they attempt to trace lively ecologies and to keep open fraught political questions about disease control and eradication. These scientists live with and query the fluctuating indices produced by the monitoring of NTDs; calculations which mobilise an idea of debility shaped not just by the experiences of vulnerable bodies but also by complex imaginations of poverty, market participation and socio-economic fitness. Ugandan scientists blend the political and epistemic, the pragmatic and the philosophical, in their critique of public health programmes and draw acute contrasts between their scientific skill and their attenuated capacity for effective political action. I will argue that their stories can guide us towards new ways of producing collaborative, responsible and effective cultural critiques of global health.