Paper short abstract:

We employ empirical qualitative data to demonstrate a process of misdirection in the implementation of minimally invasive autopsy in global South. Misdirection, as applied in magic, refers to the magician’s ability to create a tunnel vision diverting attention away from actions occurring elsewhere.

Paper long abstract:

Recently, global health practitioners and policymakers have been increasingly vocal about the complex challenges of identifying and quantifying the causes of death of the world’s poorest people. To address this cause-of-death uncertainty and to minimise longstanding sensitivities and reservations about full autopsies in the Global South, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have been at the forefront of advocating minimally invasive autopsies (MIA) as a solution to firstly understanding why poor people die and then addressing the reasons why.

MIA involves using hollow needles to collect samples from key bodily organs and so is argued to potentially be more acceptable than a full autopsy, which requires opening the cadaver. In addition, MIA is considered a good means of collecting accurate bodily samples and can provide crucial information needed to address cause-of-death uncertainty.

In this paper, I employ empirical qualitative data to demonstrate a process of misdirection in the implementation of MIA in the Global South. Misdirection, as applied in magic, refers to the magician’s ability to create a tunnel vision thereby diverting attention away from noticing actions occurring elsewhere.

The trick of MIA as a ‘magic bullet’ is to conjure a clear vision of certainty in addressing cause-of-death data gap. However, the development and deployment of technologies such as MIA always constitute interventions in complex social and moral worlds, in this respect, are both solutions to and creators of new and enduring uncertainties. Therefore, MIA can be held up as an example of misdirection in at least three important ways.