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- Convenors:
-
Gilbert Fokou
(Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire (CSRS))
Constanze Pfeiffer (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute)
Kathrin Heitz Tokpa (Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques)
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- Discussant:
-
Hannah Brown
(Durham University)
- Format:
- Panels
- Location:
- NB003
- Start time:
- 30 June, 2017 at
Time zone: Europe/Zurich
- Session slots:
- 1
Short Abstract:
One Health endorses transdisciplinary processes that involve different disciplines as well as non-academic stakeholders. Social meanings, interactions and power relations are central to analyze institutionalized collaborations between medical sciences and social scientists.
Long Abstract:
The growing awareness of the need to embark not only in inter- but also transdisciplinary processes to solve complex problems has invigorated the development of One Health. The strength of One Health is the closer cooperation of health sectors and other concerned disciplines. Its transdisciplinary nature involves academic and non-academic actors and aims at initiating an iterative, multilevel process of knowledge construction. Inter- and transdisciplinary research in One Health is still at the beginning, but there are few exceptions where social, natural, and medical sciences as well as members of the society jointly define objectives and approaches. However, many so called "socio-economic" or "socio-cultural" studies on zoonoses are largely questionnaire-based or include Knowledge Attitude Practices (KAP) studies that are often led by veterinarians. Ethnographic descriptions of human-animal interactions in specific local contexts are rare. In addition, documentation and critical analysis of transdisciplinary processes of knowledge constructions and inter-subjectivity in One Health are missing.
Social sciences with the potential to analyse different social dynamics, inter-subjectivity and power relations can best contribute to this process.
In this panel, we plan to reflect on the contribution of social sciences to the control of zoonotic and environmentally led diseases. We invite papers to consider how human-animal-environment interactions are shaped by social and cultural processes at the interface of rural and urban contexts. What are insights gained so far? What are knowledge gaps?
Accepted papers:
Session 1Alessia Villanucci (Comitato Collaborazione Medica) Valeria Pecchioni (Comitato Collaborazione Medica) Micol Fascendini (CCM, Comitato Collaborazione Medica) Elena Isotta Cristofori (TriM-Translate into Meaning)
Paper short abstract:
The paper focuses on the methodology and results of a transdisciplinary operational research conducted by the NGO Comitato Collaborazione Medica in the rural district of Filtu (Somali Region, Ethiopia) and on the specific contribution of the ethnographic and anthropological approaches to fieldwork.
Paper long abstract:
Between July 2015 and February 2016, the Italian NGO Comitato Collaborazione Medica (CCM) implemented an operational research (OR) in the rural district of Filtu (Somali Region, Ethiopia) financed by the Swiss Development Cooperation and based on the One Health approach. The research aimed at conducting an in-depth ethnography of the needs, perceptions and behaviours of pastoralist communities in relation to health, sicknesses and human-animal interaction. Special attention was given to the socio-cultural, structural and economic hindrances preventing the access to existing healthcare and veterinary facilities. Moreover, the study reviewed the strategies of adaptation and resilience enacted by the pastoralists groups facing environmental, social and political transformations and conflicts.
The OR multidisciplinary team was coordinated by a social anthropologist and involved local and international staff, composed of cultural mediators, health workers, veterinarians, public health and environmental experts, applied meteorologists and geographers. The paper highlights the way in which the application of the ethnographic methodology and the anthropological perspective to fieldwork allowed integrating these plural scientific contributions with the community members' knowledge and experiences and building an interactive dialogue among research staff, local authorities and household members. The main result of the transdisciplinary and intercultural approach is the participatory identification of specific strategies of intervention, acknowledged and endorsed by the pastoralist communities, to enhance the health of humans and animals. Moving from these strategies, CCM is now developing a wider One Health project-line, finalized to promote a better and more sustainable human, animal and environmental health in its areas of intervention.
Danson Mwangi (Institute of Primate Research)
Paper short abstract:
Most protected areas result to displacement of local people, with tremendous consequences on the people, animals and the environment. For an appreciation of these areas, we recommend engagement of neighboring communities in making management decisions, and in generating positive livelihood outcomes.
Paper long abstract:
Protected areas, including national parks and reserves, and protected landscapes, have been established traditionally as an approach towards natural resource conservation. However, like many other major projects imposed by governments most protected areas, have been created through forced displacement of local communities, with tremendous consequences on both the community being displaced and the natural resources intended for conservation. With a specific focus on Nthongoni, a human-wildlife interface of Tsavo and Chyullu hills National parks in Eastern Kenya, this paper explores the forms of conflict that emerge in relation to establishment of protected areas, and how these shape the social, cultural and economic lives of people living at the borderlands of these areas. We also examine the implications on the health of people in the borderlands and beyond, particularly in regard to bush-meat consumption and trade. Finally we argue that government policies and the top-down approach adopted by park managers are a pediment to harmonious coexistence between wildlife and the communities entangled with it. For the promotion of conservation interventions that are both human and wildlife centered, we recommend for creation of an enabling environment that engages communities neighboring wildlife areas in generating new kinds of capital that translates into positive livelihood outcomes, and hence fostering an appreciation of the protected areas.
This paper has been developed in collaboration with Hannah Brown.
Akissi Olga Danièle Konan (Centre Suisse de Recherches Scientifiques en Côte d'Ivoire)
Paper short abstract:
Based on the assumption that disease is a biocultural phenomenon and social factors generally play a crucial role in the emergence and spread of disease, our study focused on the One health approach to analyses human and environmental interactions related to the emergence of Buruli ulcer.
Paper long abstract:
In a globalized context characterized by a high mobility of human beings and animal species, growing ecological concerns and the (re-)emergence of infectious diseases show that health problems should be tackled as a whole, taking into consideration medical and biological, but also social, cultural and political processes. The One health approach characterized by the human-animal-environment nexus is likely to bring responses to this complex whole and interconnectedness.
Based on the assumption that disease is a biocultural phenomenon and social factors generally play a crucial role in the emergence of disease, this contribution analyses human and environmental interactions related to the emergence of Buruli ulcer (BU), in endemic areas of Cote d'Ivoire. The contribution draws on research conducted since 2012 in four endemic health districts in southern and Central Côte d'Ivoire (Taabo, Daloa, Sinfra and Bouaké). It aims to highlight the interconnections between ecosystems, local knowledge, human activities and the emergence of Buruli ulcer. Specifically, it focuses on the ethno-ecological history of the emergence of Buruli ulcer as well as on domestic and socio-professional activities exposing populations to risks of contracting BU.
From the findings, we argue that a combination of social, ecological, demographic and economic factors such as poverty, migration patterns, environmental change or cessation of religious practices is critically important in the emergence of BU.
Finally, incorporating the social sciences into one health approaches can help address topics such as human-animal relations, environmental in the emergence of diseases in a better way than ever before.
This paper was developed in collaboration with Gilbert Fokou.
Hannah Brown (Durham University)
Paper short abstract:
One health interventions are produced at the intersections of health infrastructures and environmental ecology. This paper critically interrogates relationships between crisis and ecology in the constitution of health systems responses to Lassa Fever
Paper long abstract:
This paper draws on research on Lassa fever to explore how knowledge about disease and knowledge about animals shapes health systems infrastructure in global health. The paper explores the mutual constitution of health infrastructure and forms of ecological knowledge about the multimammate rat Mastomys Natalensis. M Natalensis is the rodent host of the Lassa fever, a viral haemorrhagic fever found in West Africa. Health systems infrastructure for managing Lassa fever in Sierra Leone has been profoundly shaped by the recent Ebola outbreak and the earlier Rebel war, each involving complex responses from development and research agencies. At the same these infrastructures have been shaped by scientific and lay forms of ecological knowledge about rat habitats and the location of the virus which have resulted in a highly targeted infrastructure - located primarily in the region around Sierra Leone's third city, Kenema.