Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World (Critical Global Health: Evidence, Efficacy, Ethnography)

Biruk, Cal (Crystal)

ISBN 10: 0822370891 / ISBN 13: 9780822370895

Published by Duke University Press, 2018

About this Item

Acceptable condition USED book. Pages are perfectly readable, but book has noticeable wear. May have markings inside from previous owner.

Seller Inventory # VLM.1CFM

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World (Critical Global Health: Evidence, Efficacy, Ethnography)
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication Date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822370891
• ISBN 13: 9780822370895
• Binding: Soft cover
• Condition: acceptable

About this title

Synopsis

In Cooking Data Cal 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.

About the Author

Cal (Crystal) Biruk is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Oberlin College.