Traces of the Future: An Archaeology of Medical Science in Africa - Hardcover

Geissler, Paul Wenzel; Lachenal, Guillaume

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1783207256 ISBN 13: 9781783207251

Publisher: University of Chicago Press, 2016

Synopsis

This book presents a close look at the vestiges of twentieth-century medical work at five key sites in Africa: Senegal, Nigeria, Cameroon, Kenya and Tanzania. The authors aim to understand the afterlife of scientific institutions and practices and the 'aftertime' of scientific modernity and its attendant visions of progress and transformation. Straightforward scholarly work is juxtaposed here with altogether more experimental approaches to fieldwork and analysis, including interview fragments; brief, reflective essays; and a rich photographic archive. The result is an unprecedented view of the lingering traces of medical science from Africa's past.  

About this title

About the Authors

Paul Wenzel Geissler teaches social anthropology at the University of Oslo. With Lachenal, Manton, Tousignant and other scholars and artists he published Traces of the Future (2016). With Ruth Prince, he is currently studying remains and afterlives of epidemics in East Africa, revisiting their book on AIDS in Kenya, The Land Is Dying (2010).

Guillaume Lachenal is a lecturer at the Université Paris Diderot, junior fellow of the Institut Universitaire de France.

John Manton is associate professor of history at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

Noémi Tousignant is affiliate member of the Department of Social Studies of Medicine at McGill, and guest researcher in history at the Université de Montréal.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Chicago Press
• Publication date: 2016
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1783207256
• ISBN 13: 9781783207251
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 176