Overview

Countries in sub-Saharan Africa were once dismissed by Western experts as being too poor and chaotic to benefit from the antiretroviral drugs that transformed the AIDS epidemic in the United States and Europe. Today, however, the region is courted by some of the most prestigious research universities in the world as they search for ""resource-poor"" hospitals in which to base their international HIV research and global health programs. In Scrambling for Africa, Johanna Tayloe Crane reveals how, in the space of merely a decade, Africa went from being a continent largely excluded from advancements in HIV medicine to an area of central concern and knowledge production within the increasingly popular field of global health science. Drawing on research conducted in the U.S. and Uganda during the mid-2000s, Crane provides a fascinating ethnographic account of the transnational flow of knowledge, politics, and research money-as well as blood samples, viruses, and drugs. She takes readers to underfunded Ugandan HIV clinics as well as to laboratories and conference rooms in wealthy American cities like San Francisco and Seattle where American and Ugandan experts struggle to forge shared knowledge about the AIDS epidemic. The resulting uncomfortable mix of preventable suffering, humanitarian sentiment, and scientific ambition shows how global health research partnerships may paradoxically benefit from the very inequalities they aspire to redress. A work of outstanding interdisciplinary scholarship, Scrambling for Africa will be of interest to audiences in anthropology, science and technology studies, African studies, and the medical humanities.

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9780801479175

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<p> In Scrambling for Africa, Johanna Tayloe Crane argues that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has enabled the emergence of a global research apparatus that extracts value (in the form of data, commodities, and careers) from embodied forms of inequality. Global economic inequalities and the political forces that sustain them translate into biological inequalities that make populations available for enrollment, observation, and the testing of interventions. Crane makes some very strong and hard-hitting points that buttress her nuanced critical stance. Vinh-Kim Nguyen, Universite de Montreal and College d'etudes mondiales Paris

In Scrambling for Africa, Johanna Tayloe Crane argues that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has enabled the emergence of a global research apparatus that extracts value (in the form of data, commodities, and careers) from embodied forms of inequality. Global economic inequalities and the political forces that sustain them translate into biological inequalities that make populations available for enrollment, observation, and the testing of interventions. Crane makes some very strong and hard-hitting points that buttress her nuanced critical stance. Vinh-Kim Nguyen, Universite de Montreal and College d'etudes mondiales Paris

Anthropologist Crane (Univ. of Washington-Bothell) presents a solidly documented and well-reasoned discussion of AIDS and its far-reaching effects. An excellent overview deals with resistance to treatment... Recommended. Graduate students, faculty, professionals. -Choice(April 2014) Scrambling for Africa is a thoughtful and compelling work. Johanna Tayloe Crane engages a critical issue in contemporary medicine: the central roles played by AIDS and Africa in the rise of a newly 'global' form of health research. Accessibly written and featuring a wealth of rich material, her careful study offers new insight into this pivotal story. -Peter Redfield, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of Life in Crisis: The Ethical Journey of Doctors Without Borders In Scrambling for Africa, Johanna Tayloe Crane argues that the HIV/AIDS epidemic has enabled the emergence of a global research apparatus that extracts value (in the form of data, commodities, and careers) from embodied forms of inequality. Global economic inequalities-and the political forces that sustain them-translate into biological inequalities that make populations available for enrollment, observation, and the testing of interventions. Crane makes some very strong and hard-hitting points that buttress her nuanced critical stance. -Vinh-Kim Nguyen, Universite de Montreal and College d'etudes mondiales Paris

Author Information

Johanna Tayloe Crane is Assistant Professor in the School of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences of the University of Washington-Bothell.

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