Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"
An Epidemic of Uncertainty is dense and thorough in its engagement with the TLT study, interspersed with detailed ethnographic vignettes that give stories, names, and weight to the vast data collected and examined." * The Lancet *
"The philosophy and history of mathematical probability and its applications have recently, and very evocatively, described it as ‘the taming of chance’. Trinitapoli reminds us that this is certainly not the case. The calculus of risk, however impressive its achievements, cannot dispel the uncertainty of life events as people actually experience them. In the course of her analysis, she builds a simple and powerful explanatory framework attentive not only to the findings of her own superb ethnography, but to other demographers’, anthropologists’, and sociologists’, contributions." -- Philip Kreager, Somerville College, Oxford University
"Trinitapoli, with her storytelling, has successfully opened a window for the reader to look into village life in Balaka district in Malawi, and she has at the same time, addressed demographic phenomena of fertility, migration, and mortality in a context of rapidly changing local HIV epidemic. The sensitive and accurate portrayal of village life and its chatter, interwoven with uncertainty in decision-making over partnerships, parenthood, and divorce has given me a fresh perspective on how I will read HIV and demographic statistics in the future."
-- Nyovani Madise, Director of Research and Sustainable Development Policies and Head of the Malawi office of the African Institute for Development Policy
"An Epidemic of Uncertainty is a multicourse gourmet meal for demographers. It is a book to settle into, chew on, and ruminate over with good friends. Empirically dense, theoretically rich, and analytically smart, the book moves the reader effortlessly between sophisticated quantitative analyses and everyday village and town life in and around Balaka, Malawi. And it brings demography, in all its interdisciplinary and conceptual splendor, to bear on the new subfield, Jenny Trinitapoli, the book's author, wants to usher in: Uncertainty Demography." -- Sanyu A. Mojola * Population and Development Review *
Table of ContentsList of Abbreviations
1 Introduction: Surveying the Shadows of Uncertainty
2 Ten Years in Balaka: The Excellent and Imperfect Data of Longitudinal Studies
3 Uncertainty Demography
4 The Scope of HIV Uncertainty
5 HIV Uncertainty and the Limits of Testing
6 Relationship Uncertainty and Marriage Instability
7 Call the Ankhoswe
8 Ultimate Uncertainties and the Mortality Landscape
9 Conclusion: Varieties of Uncertainty in Balaka
Acknowledgments
Appendix: Mortality Trends in Malawi, 1990–2020
Glossary of Chichewa and Technical Terms
Notes
References
Index
