The Plurality of Biopower in West Africa: On the Tuberculosis Project in Southern Ghana

2014 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 25884095
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Research Activity Start-up
• Allocation Type: Single-year Grants
• Research Field: Cultural anthropology
• Research Institution: National Museum of Ethnology
• Principal Investigator: HAMADA Akinori 国立民族学博物館, 先端人類科学研究部, 機関研究員 (30707253)
• Project Period (FY): 2013-08-30 – 2015-03-31
• Keywords: 結核 / 生権力 / ドキュメント / 薬剤 / グローバルヘルス / 医療人類学 / ガーナ / 西アフリカ

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This research reveals the interferences of effects of biopower by illustrating several features of the tuberculosis project in Southern Ghana. First, the project focuses on the attitudes of the community health nurses who only partly engage in it, though their limited engagement is primarily due to resources deficiencies. Second, the patients’ lives and health are just as influenced by the attitudes and life plans of their family members as by project policies regarding nurses and documents. Third, because tuberculosis patients cannot fully rely on the nurses, they are subjectified in their own recoveries through a document, the Treatment Support Card. Finally, treatments’ successes as the effects of biopower depend on how the nurses and family members engage with them. Thus, there are interferences of effects of biopwer; the inadequacy of nurses’ efficacy is a precondition for the subjectification of patients and the importance of family aid.

Free Research Field

医療人類学