Description
Book SynopsisRamah McKay follows two medical projects in Mozambique through the day-to-day lives of patients and health care providers, showing how transnational medical resources and infrastructures give rise to diverse possibilities for work and care amid constraint.
Trade Review“A nuanced account.
Medicine in the Meantime will greatly enrich anthropological conversations on health, transnational governmentality, and the state. It will likely find a wide audience both within and beyond medical anthropology.” -- China Scherz * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
"Medicine in the Meantime brings much-needed theoretical attention to the diverse relational, political and historical basis of contemporary humanitarian action, demonstrating superb ethnography, and for that reason is a valuable, highly recommended contribution to the field of medical aid." -- Britt Halvorson * Somatosphere *
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Medicine in the Meantime provides personalized insights into how individuals slip between the various subject positions elicited by transnational governance, exploiting moments of multiplicity while decrying the limitations of care such international aid provides." -- Emma Louise Backe * Anthropology Book Forum *
"Built on rich ethnographic materials collected over several years in two healthcare facilities in Mozambique,
Medicine in the Meantime provides an in-depth view of the entanglements among NGO workers, expatriates, community volunteers and patients that affect health care for people with chronic conditions . . . Scholars of transnational health and development can learn much from the book’s nuanced insights about how medical multiplicity affects health and wellbeing in Mozambique and more broadly, sub-Saharan Africa." -- Amy S. Patterson * Journal of Modern African Studies *
"The attention to hunger, the politics of the belly, and the delicate work of allocation all make this book a unique contribution to rethinking how past experiences of care and entitlement shape how individuals experience care in the present."
-- Marissa Mika * Somatosphere *
"With this book, Ramah McKay brings a new voice to the burgeoning conversation on the anthropology of global health and humanitarian aid. . . . This range of perspectives is a welcome addition to the existing literature on global health, and McKay adroitly combines lived experience with historical and political context. While her analysis is sophisticated, her writing style is accessible and easy to read, meaning that her book lends itself to both scholars and students with an interest in medical humanitarianism and global health." -- Adrienne E. Strong * American Ethnologist *
"A master-class in ethnographic writing: McKay’s attention to detail and to her own positionality make for compelling arguments based on her observations. . . . Her ethnography showcases the kind of slow and thoughtful scholarship that is the hallmark of good anthropological research, and is a timely reminder of why this is valuable and necessary." -- Michelle Pentecost * Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Introduction. Care and the Work of History 1
1. Governing Multiplicities 29
2. Making Communities of Care 57
3. Afterlives: Food, Time, and History 88
4. Nourishing Relations 112
5. The Work of Health in the Public Sector 142
6. Paperwork: Capacities of Data and Care 167
Afterword. Critique and Caring Futures 192
Notes 199
Works Cited 217
Index 237
