Paper short abstract:

This paper explores contested anthropological insights into rumours linked to medical research that were encountered as part of applied anthropological study in western Kenya.

Paper long abstract:

This paper explores the contested interpretations of "blood stealing" accusations linked to medical research and the responses of biomedical research scientists to anthropological insights into these rumours. During an applied anthropological study carried out alongside a clinical trial of a preventive malaria intervention for infants in western Kenya, researchers were faced with numerous reports of "blood stealing". In light of their potential significance for future roll-out of the intervention, these rumours - the term often used by respondents - were further explored. Although the stories of "blood stealing" were seemingly not linked to the intervention per se, we deemed their persistance in this highly researched setting to be worthy of further analysis. With the input from other members of the social science team I drafted an article in which the rumours were described, discussed with reference to the reported key rumour spreaders, the nature of medical research, the potential instrumental uses of rumours, and placed in context. The article was however met with concerted opposition from senior members of the local branch of the collaborating biomedical research institution. Criticisms were levelled at the objectives, methods, intepretation and presentation of the findings. Perhaps most tellingly, by recounting respondents' descriptions of rumours, I was accused of giving an "unbalanced" account and of presenting the community as, in the words of one malariologist, "primitive". The nature of the opposition suggested either a basic misunderstanding of the nature of anthropology or a calculated attempt at undermining the research.