Presenter: Ava Minu-Sepehr – Anthropology
Faculty Mentor(s): Melissa Graboyes, Karl Reasoner
Session: (In-Person) Oral Panel—HURF
This work-in-progress talk presents initial findings from 38 Swahili-English interviews conducted with Zanzibaris about the history of malaria and their understandings of rebound malaria and the biomedical concept of acquired immunity. Over the past century, periods of intense malarial interventions in Zanzibar reduced malaria tremendously, while subsequent withdrawals led to dangerous rebound epidemics. This project weaves together contemporary interview data and historical context to present “vernacular knowledge” about malaria. “Vernacular knowledge” captures different and fluid forms of thinking, knowing, and meaning-making using local language, recognizing the impact of foreign. I will report initial findings from this research, as we complete coding of the interview transcripts using a modified grounded theory approach. Salient themes across oral interviews include danger, education, and responsibility, as well as the role of the environment and foreign funding in discussions about malaria. Our research demonstrates that Zanzibari’s don’t share the same biomedical framings of “rebound malaria” and “acquired immunity,” but that their understandings vary based on age, gender, and expertise with malaria. This research challenges what types of knowledge are valued and disseminated, and allows us to ask how the work of decolonizing diverse knowledge can be performed. This project is part of a larger NSF grant led by Professor Graboyes on the history of malaria in Africa.