Introduction

Abstract

Since the turn of the millennium, conceptual and practice-oriented shi s in global health have increasingly given emphasis to health indicator production over research and interventions that emerge out of local social practices, environments and concerns. In this special issue of Anthropology in Action, we ask whether such globalised contexts allow for, recognise and suffi ciently value the research contributions of our discipline. We question how global health research, ostensibly inter-or multi-disciplinary, generates knowledge. We query 'notknowing' practices that inform and shape global health evidence as infl uenced by funders' and collaborators' expectations. The articles published here provide analyses of historical and ethnographic fi eld experiences that show how sidelining anthropological contributions results in poorer research outcomes for the public. Citing experiences in Latin America, Angola, Senegal, Nigeria and the domain of global health evaluation, the authors consider anthropology's roles in global health. AssumptionsWe do not reprise here debates about how anthropologists defi ne global health (for example, Janes and Corbe 2010; Kleinman 2010; and Nguyen 2016); neither do we make the reductive argument that anthropology brings value to global health primarily as a method for conducting formative research or evaluation; nor do we explicitly explore anthropology's long history of critical engagement with numbers and statistics (for example, Asad 1994; Erikson

Contested legitimacy for anthropologists involved in medical humanitarian action: experiences from the 2014-2016 West Africa Ebola epidemic

“…Thus, they argue, whilst such approaches maintain anthropological expertise, they focus the role of anthropology on providing facts and in this way devalue ethnography, which sets anthropologists apart from other disciplines involved in medical humanitarianism. Reynolds and Lange (2019) argue for the importance of anthropological engagement in global health because it takes such multiple perspectives and positions, and thus in agreement with Jean-Klein and Riles (2005) we argue that anthropologists engaging with medical humanitarianism must maintain a commitment to ethnography as a 'form of care for the discipline itself ' (p. 174)…”

“…However, whilst uniquely placed to co-construct and denunciate, anthropology's engagement within broader epidemic response structures has revealed similar discomfort that anthropologists encounter when engaging more broadly with global health initiatives that 'stresses populations over people and indicators over values and practices' (Reynolds and Lange 2019, p.3). In particular, challenges have emerged for anthropologists when they are positioned as experts in the field, rather than the contexts that they work in, which are similarly experienced by anthropologists engaging with biomedicine and global health that do not always embrace ethnographic data as legitimate (Reynolds and Lange 2019). This challenge is exacerbated by the widespread shift in global health research from the application of anthropological methods to qualitative methods, usually due to funding constraints or other exigencies that do not accommodate in-depth anthropological research (Reynolds and Lange 2019).…”

“…In particular, challenges have emerged for anthropologists when they are positioned as experts in the field, rather than the contexts that they work in, which are similarly experienced by anthropologists engaging with biomedicine and global health that do not always embrace ethnographic data as legitimate (Reynolds and Lange 2019). This challenge is exacerbated by the widespread shift in global health research from the application of anthropological methods to qualitative methods, usually due to funding constraints or other exigencies that do not accommodate in-depth anthropological research (Reynolds and Lange 2019). As within global health research, the anthropologists who worked in medical humanitarian emergencies were expected to 'ignore many of the theoretical and interactive techniques bequeathed by anthropology's long history to accommodate the expectations of colleagues, fit within budgets and timetables, and adhere to other apparently necessary constraint' (Reynolds and Lange 2019, p. 10).…”