Paper short abstract:

Anthropologists are undertaking TB-related research on concepts which create ‘health citizens’. While it is imperative for anthropologists to study the social and political tropes of an infection, we must be wary of the global health agenda and their responses to our disciplinary expertise.

Paper long abstract:

Global health funding for tuberculosis (TB) aims to develop rapid diagnostic tests that are cheap, simple to use, and can quickly and accurately diagnose TB in low-resource settings. A similar trend has been a shift from producing post-diagnostic antibiotics to producing vaccinations that preclude the onset of TB. These are critical yet isolated responses to a complex problem. A critical medical anthropological approach can strengthen understanding of social markers of TB and treatment seeking behaviour. While it is imperative for anthropologists to commit to study the social and political tropes of an infection, we must be cautious of the global health agenda and their responses to our disciplinary expertise. Currently, social scientists are undertaking research on 'adherence', 'compliance' and 'trust' in the face of emerging drug-resistant TB strains—concepts which confer responsibility on the individual health seeker—an agenda set by global health imperatives. Here, anthropology and anthropologists feel like visitors in health-related research. The historical legacies of the global health approaches surrounding TB knowledge have effectively disaggregated treatment regimes from food security, nutrition or hunger. By researching a group of health activists committed to providing preventive and curative services in poverty stricken areas of Chhattisgarh state in central India, this research asked how 'hungry' TB infected patients negotiated biomedical knowledge and practices that aim to create 'responsible' (ie. adherent) patients. This research contributes to a critical ethical theory of risk and vulnerability in relation to subjectivities forged in and inhabiting globalised biomedical forms.