Book review: understanding West Africa's Ebola epidemic: towards a political economy edited by Ibrahim Abdullah and Ismail Rashid

Jonah Lipton says that this book is a valuable contribution to the Ebola literature but also key for anyone interested in the state of Africa, epidemiology, and political economy

World Cup fever in Sierra Leone reveals how the beautiful game unites and divides

LSE’s Jonah Lipton looks at how football serves as a window into a wider world for marginalised youth in Freetown

Mixed messages: Social media, rumours and responses to the #Ebola outbreak in #SierraLeone’s capital, Freetown

LSE’s Jonah Lipton is currently living in Freetown where he is doing his fieldwork. In this post, he reveals the role social media is playing in spreading mixed messages about the Ebola outbreak in the country

‘Black’ and ‘white’ death: burials in a time of Ebola in Freetown, Sierra Leone

The article examines experiences of the 2014-15 Ebola crisis in Freetown, Sierra Leone, through an analysis of the performance of burials. While most of the city's residents had no contact with the virus, ‘Ebola’ was inescapable, owing to the onerous state of emergency regulations imposed by national and international authorities. All burials, regardless of the cause of death, were to be performed by newly established official teams operating according to unfamiliar biomedical and bureaucratic protocols. Burials became emblematic of the crisis through presenting a conflict between local practices and novel procedures, which was coded locally in a complex racial language of ‘black’ and ‘white’, recalling a long regional history of violent integration into the Atlantic World. Building on long-standing anthropological discussion on the relationship between ‘good’ death and social order, the article explores how burials became sites around which opposing ‘orders’ were experienced, negotiated, and reconciled in locally meaningful ways

Family politics and female authority in Sierra Leone

In Freetown, Sierra Leone, electoral politics is not the dominant form of politics. Jonah Lipton sheds light on the significance of family politics and the prominence of women in these decision-making processes

Family business: work, neighbourhood life, coming of age, and death in the time of Ebola in Freetown, Sierra Leone

In 2014 the Ebola virus entered Sierra Leone, soon to become the epicentre of a global health crisis. A state of emergency was declared, propped up by a large-scale and far-reaching humanitarian intervention; characterised by stringent bureaucratic and biomedical protocols, restrictions on social and economic life, and novel monetary flows. Based on 17 months of ethnographic fieldwork in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, immediately before and during the state of emergency, the thesis presents an intimate account of the lives and social worlds of young men living in an urban neighbourhood. The thesis outlines the centrality of the domestic sphere – home, neighbourhood, and family – in young men’s projects of coming of age, as well as in surviving and brokering ‘crisis’ and foreign intervention. Rather than ‘crisis’ halting the processes of social reproduction, such processes became central means through which a conflict between ‘foreign’ and ‘local’ expectations – brought to the fore by external intervention – was reconciled and negotiated. The thesis demonstrates how a political economy of crisis maps onto core social tensions between independence and dependence that young men ambiguously negotiate around the home, and how resultant social practices and understandings connect to Freetown’s deeper and more recent histories of intervention, crisis, and entanglement with the Atlantic World

Reading list: most popular book reviews of 2018

We couldn’t say goodbye to 2018 before sharing our top book reviews of the year, as voted by your clicks

Good and ‘bad’ deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic: insights from a rapid qualitative study

Dealing with excess death in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the question of a good or bad death' into sharp relief as countries across the globe have grappled with multiple peaks of cases and mortality; and communities mourn those lost. In the UK, these challenges have included the fact that mortality has adversely affected minority communities. Corpse disposal and social distancing guidelines do not allow a process of mourning in which families and communities can be involved in the dying process. This study aimed to examine the main concerns of faith and non-faith communities across the UK in relation to death in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research team used rapid ethnographic methods to examine the adaptations to the dying process prior to hospital admission, during admission, during the disposal and release of the body, during funerals and mourning. The study revealed that communities were experiencing collective loss, were making necessary adaptations to rituals that surrounded death, dying and mourning and would benefit from clear and compassionate communication and consultation with authorities

'A good death' during the Covid-19 pandemic in the UK: a report on key findings and recommendations

Dealing with death and bereavement in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic will present significant challenges for at least the next three months. The current situation does not allow for families andbcommunities to be involved in the process of death in ways in which they would normally hope or expect to be. In addition, mortality rates will disproportionately affect vulnerable households. The government has identified the following communities as being at increased risk: single parent households; multi-generational Black and Minority Ethnic groups; men without degrees in lone households and/or in precarious work; small family business owners in their 50s; and elderlyhouseholds. Our study focused on these groups. This report presents a summary of findings and key recommendations by a team of anthropologists from the London School of Economics who conducted a public survey and 58 cross-community interviews between 3 and 9 April 2020. It explores ways to prepare these communities and households for impending deaths with communications and policy support. More information on the research methodology, data protection and ethical procedures is available in Appendix 1. A summary of relevant existing research can be found in Appendix 2. A list of key contacts across communities for consultation is available on request. Research was focused on “what a good death looks like” for people across all faiths and for vulnerable groups. It examined how communities were already adapting how they dealt with processes of dying, burials, funerals and bereavement during the pandemic, and responding to new government regulations. It specifically focused on five transitions in the process of death, and what consultation processes, policies and communications strategies could be mobilised to support communities through these phases