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- Convenors:
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Eleanor Hutchinson
(London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Janet Seeley (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Diane Duclos (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Luisa Enria (LSHTM)
Jennifer Palmer (London School of Hygiene Tropical Medicine)
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- Chair:
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Virginia Bond
(London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Short Abstract:
Interest in anthropological knowledge is resurgent in public health, seen as critical for government decision-makers. This panel reflects on content for post-graduate training in public health, strategies and pitfalls, loses and gains when anthropology knowledge is imagined as a public health tool.
Long Abstract:
In 2023, the former Chief Medical Officer for England Sally Davies reconfirmed her conviction that anthropological knowledge was critical for decision-makers at the highest level of government, “I have previously stated that whilst it is desirable for biomedical experts to confine their advice to biomedical matters, ministers also need advice from economists and anthropologists and people from other points of view who can help balance the issues. I can confirm that I still hold those views.” (4th May, Covid Inquiry). This interest in anthropology has been translated into public health education and training institutions. While students of public health are often keen for new forms of knowledge they continue to be challenged by epistemological claims; concerns about bias and nature of subjective forms of knowledge; and some continue to join classes to find strategies to challenge problematic culture and traditions. This panel reflects on the ways in which anthropologists structure content for post-graduate training in public health, the strategies which they have developed and pitfalls to avoid. It also questions how anthropological knowledge itself is rendered as a ’tool’ or toolkit for public health in the process of becoming part of a curriculum for future practitioners and with what consequences. The panel focuses on changes at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine but is open to others teaching public health at master's and doctoral levels.
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Thursday 27 June, 2024, -Melania Calestani (Kingston University)
Paper short abstract:
Within their public health training, midwives need to engage with wider determinants of health and critically analyse public health strategies. This paper will analyse challenges emerging in postgraduate midwifery education and research, and strategies when it comes to the teaching of anthropology.
Paper long abstract:
Student midwives are taught to critically analyse the socio-political influences affecting childbearing and the changing context of maternal care provision. In particular, within their public health training, they need to engage with wider determinants of health and critically analyse public health strategies. In this context critical medical anthropology is introduced to bridge the analysis between the micro sphere and the macro structure, with the aim to shift attention from individual lifestyles to structural factors affecting the health of women and birthing people. However, the everyday world of clinical practice is filled with paradoxes around who defines knowledge, how it is constructed, and how the individual midwife applies it when providing care for women, birthing people and their families. This paper will analyse contrasting epistemological perspectives and challenges faced in postgraduate midwifery education and research, and the strategies adopted to overcome emerging issues.
Diane Duclos (London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Paper short abstract:
How can anthropology help public health students reflect on narratives and experiences of crises, and inform public health training in emergencies? This paper will explore lessons learnt from “pacing research” as a means to purposively bring awareness on the dissonant temporalities of crises.
Paper long abstract:
Framing a situation as a “crisis” enables exceptional politics and interventions, and produces accelerated temporalities. Anthropological research and its core element of ‘immersion’ can, at first, appear irrelevant at best, if not conflicting with a moral imperative of acting fast to save lives, especially in acute crises. To fit within framings of crises, researchers have received more and more requests for ‘rapid data collection tools’ (including rapid ethnographies), and space has opened-up for real-time engagement between researchers and policy makers. Enduring social structures, however, need to be accounted for in research, teaching and practice.
Postgraduate modules and training programmes on public health in emergencies are routinely offered through public health institutions. Students attending these classes have had exposure to macro-narratives on crises, some of them have first-hand experience implementing public health interventions or clinical care in national health systems and humanitarian agencies in emergencies, while others may have personal experiences of living in crises. How can anthropology teaching help students reflect on such narratives and experiences, and inform future public health thinking and action in context of crises?
This paper will explore the role(s) of anthropology to prepare public health professionals navigate and reimagine public health action in crises. It will look into the importance of “pacing research” as a means to purposively bring awareness on the dissonant temporalities in and of crises.
Luisa Enria (LSHTM)
Paper short abstract:
This paper reflects on the experience of integrating anthropological perspectives in training for public health students and practitioners. It explores the opportunities for encouraging critical engagement with public health practice and the limitations of packaging anthropology as a 'toolkit'.
Paper long abstract:
This paper reflects on the experience of integrating anthropological perspectives in interdisciplinary training for public health students and practitioners. It focuses specifically on the growing demand for ‘qualitative research’ in public health emergencies, and how this has generated new interest in ‘integrated’, interdisciplinary approaches. This has offered important opportunities to introduce anthropological questions in public health curricula and to encourage critical engagement with the politics of public health. Creating spaces for students and practitioners to challenge their assumptions and to reflect on their position in the field can make a tangible difference in the everyday work of public health practice. At the same time, teaching anthropology as an ‘add-on’ to public health training also has important limitations. This paper explores these by considering the consequences of packaging anthropology as a ‘toolkit’ to be deployed by practitioners, and in particular its potentially depoliticising effects. The discussion draws on experiences in teaching medical anthropology to public health students at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, as well as delivering qualitative research training to international humanitarian practitioners and field epidemiologists at the Ministry of Health in Sierra Leone.