Laura A Meek
I am an Assistant Professor in the Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies at the University of British Columbia, Okanagan. I am a cultural and medical anthropologist who researches counterfeit pharmaceuticals, fugitive science, and the politics of healing in East Africa. I received my Ph.D. and M.A. in Anthropology from the University of California, Davis, as well as an M.A. in Women’s Studies from George Washington University and an Honors B.A. in Comparative Human Development from the University of Chicago. Before joining UBC, I worked as a faculty member in the interdisciplinary Centre for the Humanities and Medicine at the University of Hong Kong.
My first project, Pharmaceuticals in Divergence: Radical Uncertainty and World-Making Tastes in Tanzania, is based on over three years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, and focuses on the proliferation of counterfeits in local biomedical markets where an estimated 30-60% of drugs are thought to be fake. I explore the bodily epistemologies and fugitive sciences through which my interlocutors assess, decipher, and challenge biomedical claims, while also demonstrating how they transform pharmaceuticals, allowing these substances to act outside the logics of biomedicine. I approach this material through the lens of feminist and postcolonial science studies, as a way to engage both conditions of radical uncertainty and world-making innovation happening in Africa today.
My second project, The Grammar of Leprosy: Temporal Politics and the Impossible Subject, develops a line of inquiry which was prompted by my discovery that the antibiotic cure for leprosy was readily available, and yet inaccessible, for my interlocutors in Tanzania in need of treatment. I am currently developing a multi-sited and interdisciplinary research project on the temporal politics of leprosy elimination campaigns across historical archives, scientific knowledge production, and global health initiatives.
Additional areas of my scholarship include: the medicinal significance of sensory qualities like taste; histories of medicine and healing across the Indian Ocean world; dreaming as medical intervention and world-making practice; fugitivity in both Tanzania and Hong Kong; and the centrality of excrement to postcolonial power, subjection, and subjectivity.
I teach courses on embodiment and the anthropology of the body; feminist and postcolonial science studies; African/a studies; and cultural and medical anthropology. Recently developed courses include: Body Politics; Culture, Health, and Illness; Fugitive Science; Imagining Africa Otherwise; A Decolonial History of Anthropology; Global Health and Development; and The Body in Culture. I also supervise M.A. and Ph.D. students who conduct qualitative research on health, medicine, and the body; anticolonial theory, politics, and development in Africa; and feminist, antiracist science studies.
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Address: Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies
Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus
1147 Research Road
Kelowna, BC, V1V 1V7
Canada
My first project, Pharmaceuticals in Divergence: Radical Uncertainty and World-Making Tastes in Tanzania, is based on over three years of ethnographic fieldwork in the Southern Highlands of Tanzania, and focuses on the proliferation of counterfeits in local biomedical markets where an estimated 30-60% of drugs are thought to be fake. I explore the bodily epistemologies and fugitive sciences through which my interlocutors assess, decipher, and challenge biomedical claims, while also demonstrating how they transform pharmaceuticals, allowing these substances to act outside the logics of biomedicine. I approach this material through the lens of feminist and postcolonial science studies, as a way to engage both conditions of radical uncertainty and world-making innovation happening in Africa today.
My second project, The Grammar of Leprosy: Temporal Politics and the Impossible Subject, develops a line of inquiry which was prompted by my discovery that the antibiotic cure for leprosy was readily available, and yet inaccessible, for my interlocutors in Tanzania in need of treatment. I am currently developing a multi-sited and interdisciplinary research project on the temporal politics of leprosy elimination campaigns across historical archives, scientific knowledge production, and global health initiatives.
Additional areas of my scholarship include: the medicinal significance of sensory qualities like taste; histories of medicine and healing across the Indian Ocean world; dreaming as medical intervention and world-making practice; fugitivity in both Tanzania and Hong Kong; and the centrality of excrement to postcolonial power, subjection, and subjectivity.
I teach courses on embodiment and the anthropology of the body; feminist and postcolonial science studies; African/a studies; and cultural and medical anthropology. Recently developed courses include: Body Politics; Culture, Health, and Illness; Fugitive Science; Imagining Africa Otherwise; A Decolonial History of Anthropology; Global Health and Development; and The Body in Culture. I also supervise M.A. and Ph.D. students who conduct qualitative research on health, medicine, and the body; anticolonial theory, politics, and development in Africa; and feminist, antiracist science studies.
*
Address: Department of Community, Culture and Global Studies
Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences
University of British Columbia, Okanagan Campus
1147 Research Road
Kelowna, BC, V1V 1V7
Canada
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Papers by Laura A Meek
這篇图像文章反映了在香港高壓下隱匿的抗議形式。照片的時間跨度從 2019 年民主運動的高峰期到 2022 年當前的後運動主義的抗議實踐。面對政權的監控和鎮壓，甚至連”光復香港，時代革命” (Liberate Hong Kong! Revolution of our times!) 的口號都成為非法的，而那些曾經充滿革命夢想的空間，如今也變得荒涼，安靜，顯得缺乏動力。國際媒體將今天的香港描繪成一個淹沒在政治絕望中的毫無希望的地方。我們提供這些圖片是為了創造一種新的敘事方式，一種堅持在這個仍然充滿活力、正在成為一個不同的城市的地方持續進行的隱匿抗議的敘事方式。從紙杯蛋糕、塗鴉到車牌，暗語遊戲在香港隨處可見。當今的許多政治行動都利用了審查制度本身，將空白和缺失（如白紙）作為一種抗議方式。我們要展示的是，抗議者如何利用這些符號的容量來建構開放實驗、跨國團結和反抗性反叛的新興圖譜。我們邀請大家成為隱匿的人類學家，增添这些在裂縫中醞釀、蘊藏和湧現的可能性。
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Resumo
A partir de uma análise comparativa, Lee, Meek, e Katumusiime examinam três controvérsias epistemológicas em torno da COVID-19 na África Oriental: (1) a construção de um ceticismo pan-africano em relação à COVID-19, baseado em discursos anti-imperialistas; (2) a discussão em redes sociais na qual o público digital da Tanzânia avaliava criticamente a inalação de vapor como uma alternativa terapêutica para a COVID-19; e (3) a resistência de muitos ugandenses em cumprir medidas de saúde pública, como o isolamento. Ao analisar essas “verdades contestadas,” os autores demonstram que o conhecimento é um produto de práticas epistemológicas entrelaçadas, desiguais e disputadas, ligadas a estruturas de poder.
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Muhtasari
Uchanganuzi huu wa kulinganisha kweli tatu zinazoshindaniwa kuhusu Uviko-19 (COVID-19) ndani ya Afrika Mashariki unaonyesha kuwa maarifa ni zao la mazoea ya kielimu yenye mafundo, yasiyolingana, yanayobishaniwa na yanayofungamana na mifumo ya mamlaka. Lee, Meek, na Katumusiime wanachunguza (1) ujenzi wa mashaka ya pan-Afrika kuhusu Uviko-19 ambayo yanatokana na mijadala ya kupinga ubepari; (2) machapisho katika mitandao ya kijamii ambapo umma wa kidijitali wa Tanzania ulitathmini kwa kina uvutaji wa mvuke kama tiba mbadala ya Uviko-19; na (3) ukaidi wa Waganda wengi dhidi ya kutii sheria na taratibu za kiafya za umma kama vile kusitishwa kwa shughuli zote za umma. Wanapendekeza mfumo wa uchanganuzi wa “kweli zinazoshindaniwa” ambao unazingatia umaalum na hali ya kutengeneza/kutafuta ukweli ndani ya Afrika Mashariki wakati wa janga la Uviko-19.
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Résumé
L’analyse comparative de trois « vérités contestées » autour de la COVID-19 en Afrique de l’Est démontre que le savoir est le produit de pratiques épistémologiques nouées, inégales et contestées liées aux structures de pouvoir. Lee, Meek et Katumusiime examinent: (1) la construction d’un scepticisme panafricain à l’égard de la COVID-19 qui s’appuyait sur des discours anti-impérialistes; (2) les messages sur les médias sociaux par lesquelles le public numérique tanzanien a évalué de manière critique l’inhalation de vapeur comme traitement alternatif à la COVID-19; et (3) la résistance de nombreux Ougandais à se conformer aux mesures de santé publique telles que le confinement. Les « vérités contestées » sont utilisées comme cadre analytique pour centrer la spécificité et la situation de la vérité en Afrique de l’Est pendant la pandémie de COVID-19.