Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research WorldIn Cooking Data Crystal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi to rethink the production of quantitative health data. While research practices are often understood within a clean/dirty binary, Biruk shows that data are never clean; rather, they are always “cooked” during their production and inevitably entangled with the lives of those who produce them. Examining how the relationships among fieldworkers, supervisors, respondents, and foreign demographers shape data, Biruk examines the ways in which units of information—such as survey questions and numbers written onto questionnaires by fieldworkers—acquire value as statistics that go on to shape national AIDS policy. Her approach illustrates how on-the-ground dynamics and research cultures mediate the production of global health statistics in ways that impact local economies and formulations of power and expertise. |
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Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World Cal (Crystal) Biruk No preview available - 2018 |
Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World Crystal Biruk No preview available - 2018 |
Common terms and phrases
actors African anthropologists audience Balaka District beans Biruk census chapter Chewa Chichewa circumcision claim clean data codes collaborators colonial context cooking data critical critique data collection data entry data entry clerks data quality data’s demographer of Africa demographers discussed district documents Duke University Duke University Press edited ensure enumerators epidemic epistemic ethical ethnographic evidence evidence-based example expertise field notes fieldwork supervisors fieldwork teams fieldworkers foreign researchers Geissler gift global health harmful cultural practices HIV/AIDS household individuals initiation interest interview with author investments Journal knowledge kwacha labor Lilongwe LSAM LSAM’s maize Malawian fieldworkers Malawian researchers MAYP Medical Anthropology Namoyo numbers policy makers Politics Population produce questionnaire research encounters research participants research projects research subjects respondents role rural Malawians sample Science soap social space standards statistics suggested survey design survey projects survey research worlds training sessions translation University of Malawi village