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- Convenors:
-
Shelley Lees
(London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine)
Luisa Enria (LSHTM)
Frederic Le Marcis (IRD)
Shona Lee (Royal College of Surgeons in Ireland)
Tim Rhodes (LSHTM)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Sessions:
- Wednesday 19 January, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
In this panel we ask how does modelling conceptualise, produce and govern futures, and how does anthropology provide critiques of models that highlight possibilities as well as ethical, practical and methodological challenges
Long Abstract:
Recent outbreaks destabilised established epidemic control technologies and required the development of new norms and standards for forecasting to design effective interventions, mobilising both epidemiological and anthropological expertise, and creating new possibilities for interdisciplinary collaborations. As part of efforts to apprehend and intervene on the present, mathematical modelling holds a central role in the production and anticipation of possible future(s). The COVID-19 pandemic has illuminated the complex political, scientific, and social relationships between models and futures as a matter of public concern. This panel sets out to ask how mathematical modelling for epidemics can draw on anthropological enquiry to create futures informed by the complexity of human behavior and dynamics. The panel will specifically interrogate the assumptions underpinning modelling at individual, household and community levels and explore the kinds of worlds and persons that models bring into being, as well as the political identities and relations that emerge from these assumptions. The panel welcomes contributions from across disciplines to share documented encounters between mathematical modelling and anthropology. We are particularly interested in receiving contributions that engage critically with the following themes:
1. How does modeling conceptualise, produce and govern futures? With what effects?
2. How do public(s) understand and perceive the role of modelling in making futures, and participate in this process through digital data platforms and citizen science projects?
3. Methodological considerations for collaborations between anthropology and mathematical modeling
4. How can anthropology offer critiques of models
5. The possibilities and challenges (ethical, practical and methodological) of interdisciplinary collaboration
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Wednesday 19 January, 2022, -Rubis Le Coq (ENS de Lyon)
Paper short abstract:
As part of an interdisciplinary project aiming at bringing an Ebola vaccine to licensure, modelers and anthropologist were asked to work together. In this communication I want to question the possibilities and limits of interdisciplinary work through the notion of "household" in the Guinean context.
Paper long abstract:
Modeling is now central to epidemic management (Cauchemez et al., 2011; O. Faye et al., 2015; Gilbert et al., 2020; Temime et al., 2020; Y. T. Kouakep & Tchoumi, et al., 2021). In a world governed by numbers, it has the power to alert and guide public policies, particularly in the field of global health. Despite this, the reliability of those forecasts is questioned (Huc & Mangiarotti, 2016) particularly with regard to the lesser consideration given to the social logics underlying the practices of actors described by anthropology (Brives et al., 2016). In this context and as part of an interdisciplinary work around the implementation of a vaccine trial against Ebola, I wish to question the conditions of possibility and the limits of a collaboration between modelers and anthropologists. To do this, based on ethnographic work carried out in Conakry in the Ebola aftermath, I would like to consider the collaboration between the two disciplines through the example of the notion of "household". We suggest to consider this notion as a boundary-object (Star, 1988) that need to be improved and refined in terms of definition and contextualization on both sides in order to avoid working on the basis of a misunderstanding.
Zofia Boni (Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan) Iulia Marginean (CICERO) Paloma Yáñez Serrano (Adam Mickiewicz University)
Paper short abstract:
This paper aims to combine anthropological and epidemiological analysis, and discusses their complementarity. It is based on an ongoing transdisciplinary research project on older adults’ experiences of heat and heat stress, and its influence on their health and wellbeing, in an urban context.
Paper long abstract:
Anthropological engagements with statistical models often take critical approaches, demonstrating how they specifically represent the social world, while simultaneously reproducing existing inequalities and vulnerabilities. In this paper, we do not position epidemiological models in contrast with anthropological findings, but rather reflect on how these distinctive approaches might complement each other, and why they need each other.
This paper stems from an ongoing research project (EmCliC) which uses qualitative and quantitative methods to study older adults’ experiences of urban heat in Warsaw and Madrid. As anthropologists we investigate individuals’ experiences of heat, embedded in their social relationships and surroundings, and how heat stress affects their physical and mental wellbeing. Through epidemiological methods, we examine statistical associations between heat stress and health outcomes, i.e., mortality and morbidity, for an entire population. Anthropology thus works to understand the particular cultural and social context and dynamics of heat stress at an individual scale, while epidemiology offers a static, though general perspective of measurable outcomes at a city-wide scale. Particular aspects of how heat stress impacts people’s health and wellbeing are visible through participant observation, while hidden from statistical analysis, and vice versa. Looking at the same problem from those two different perspectives enables us to bridge an existing gap, and reveal what cannot be understood from one single perspective: a more comprehensive and holistic picture of the effects of heat stress on older adults’ health and wellbeing.
Patrick Heady Barbara Pieta (Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology)
Paper short abstract:
We discuss what can be gained when Covid-mortality figures from northern Italy (February-April 2020) are related to ethnographic and statistical data on local patterns of social interaction, including intergenerational co-residence and the localisation of marriage and other social and economic ties
Paper long abstract:
Covid-19 prevention policies are often based on models which– because of their tendency towards large-scale aggregation- do not give enough consideration to the local patterns of social interaction which may strongly influence the air-borne transmission of the virus. This insensitivity of the current models to local patterns of sociability poses a risk of not only inaccurate/too generalized prognosis but also of unrealistic containment measures.
In this presentation, we take a closer look at models of Covid-mortality distribution in northern Italy in the first weeks of the 2020 pandemic outburst. We will show what can be gained when the mortality figures are related to ethnographic and statistical data on local patterns of social interaction, including intergenerational co-residence and the localisation of marriage and other social and economic ties. Building on quantitative data from two large-scale studies on kinship and community behaviour in Europe (KASS and SHARE) as well as on ethnographic data on solidarity patterns in other communities in North Italy, we argue that the extremely high levels excess mortality in the rural communities surrounding Bergamo in the first weeks of the pandemic, can be partly explained by the ease of inter-generational transmission within multi-generational households, reinforced by socially mediated re-transmission within the same local community.
While the discussed example aims to be only descriptive and not conclusive, it suggests the relevance of anthropological knowledge, including classical kinship theory, to the epidemiological debates on Covid and beyond. The talk will conclude with a discussion on challenges and benefits of combining ethnographic and statistical methods.