Contemporary Africa through the theory of Louis Dumont

Abstract This article responds to a trend in recent anthropological scholarship in Africa that has overemphasized a lack of social organization following the advancement of neoliberal reforms across the continent. Using a theoretical framework informed by the theory of Louis Dumont, I show that social organization remains an important analytical topic in times of crisis, and that this is best apprehended through an analysis of values. The ethnographic focus of this article is Pentecostal Christianity as it is practiced on the Zambian Copperbelt. In this particular African context, Pentecostalism is animated by an overarching value that I call "moving," which is in turn made up to two sub-values: charisma and prosperity. By exploring how Pentecostal believers navigate the hierarchical relationship between these two sub-values, we are given a clear picture of the social world that Pentecostal adherence makes possible

The Ethics of Inequality: Charity, Sustainable Development and the Problem of Dependence in Central Uganda

This dissertation explores the interactions between charity, sustainable development, and Kiganda ethics of interdependence in relation to problems of orphan support in Central Uganda. In the first half I describe how financial sustainability has emerged as a guiding principle for international development. As it has done so many non-governmental organizations in Uganda have moved away from providing charitable "handouts" and have instead attempted to foster sustainable community-based institutions. I argue that despite the popularity of these ideas among members of the local and international development communities, Baganda villagers experience these shifts away from charity not as acts of empowerment, but as suspect refusals to redistribute wealth. By contrast, I argue that rural Baganda experience charitable interventions as consistent with their own ethico-moral frameworks. Through this argument I trouble the hypothesis originally put forth by Marcel Mauss concerning the inevitable wounds of the charitable gift. In the second half I move on to examine the modes of subjectivation entailed in each of these ethical assemblages. Here I focus on a contrast between regimes of audit that are at the center of contemporary international development projects and the ways in which a community of Ugandan Catholic nuns engaged in charitable works use narrative and mimesis to shape themselves into subjects who, detached from worldly concerns, learn to trust in, and make themselves accountable to, a divine, rather than an earthly, auditor. Drawing on data collected during thirteen-months of fieldwork in Uganda my dissertation offers a reading of the contemporary philanthropic field that works to unsettle what are often assumed to be foregone conclusions about the ethics and effects of dependency and audit in the post-colonial world

Substance use policy and practice in the COVID-19 pandemic: learning from early pandemic responses through internationally comparative field data

The COVID-19 pandemic has created an unprecedented natural experiment in drug policy, treatment delivery, and harm reduction strategies by exposing wide variation in public health infrastructures and social safety nets around the world. Using qualitative data including ethnographic methods, questionnaires, and semi-structured interviews with people who use drugs (PWUD) and Delphi-method with experts from field sites spanning 13 different countries, this paper compares national responses to substance use during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Field data was collected by the Substance Use x COVID-19 (SU x COVID) Data Collaborative, an international network of social scientists, public health scientists, and community health practitioners convened to identify and contextualise health service delivery models and social protections that influence the health and wellbeing of PWUD during COVID-19. Findings suggest that countries with stronger social welfare systems pre-COVID introduced durable interventions targeting structural drivers of health. Countries with fragmented social service infrastructures implemented temporary initiatives for PWUD led by non-governmental organisations. The paper summarises the most successful early pandemic responses seen across countries and ends by calling for greater systemic investments in social protections for PWUD, diversion away from criminal-legal systems toward health interventions, and integrated harm reduction, treatment and recovery supports for PWUD