The Time of Ebola: 'Ordinary Life' at the Heart of a Global Crisis
Seminar/Forum
Anthropology and Development Studies Seminar Series
In this seminar, Dr Jonah Lipton will be presenting a paper drawing on long-term ethnographic fieldwork undertaken in Sierra Leone immediately before, and, unexpectedly, during the 2014-2016 Ebola outbreak.The global response to the epidemic was short-termist in its orientation, driven by media-fuelled fear of mass contagion. The result was heavy-handed measures that affected millions of people, the vast majority of whom had no contact with the virus. Centring on young residents of an ordinary neighbourhood in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital city, this presentation will investigate what global emergencies like Ebola mean for people already living in uncertain or precarious circumstances. It identifies ‘ordinary life’ as a long-term response to a short-term crisis.
Presenter
-
Dr Jonah Lipton, London School of EconomicsDr Jonah Lipton
London School of Economics
Jonah Lipton is an anthropologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Firoz Lalji Centre for Africa at the London School of Economics. He is currently writing a book exploring experiences of the 201416 Ebola outbreak among young residents of an urban neighbourhood of Freetown, Sierra Leone, based on longterm ethnographic fieldwork. His research integrates intimate ethnography of everyday family and economic life with a broader interrogation of global crisis and the place of anthropology to understand and act in it. He is currently based in Melbourne for the year.
