Ebola in Perspective

Photo by NIAID, licensed under CC BY.

Since early 2014, the international coverage of Africa has been dominated by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Much of that coverage represents the region as helpless and hopeless, a tragic victim of illogical beliefs and dangerous cultural practices. The contributors to this Hot Spots series offer their personal and professional experience in this region as a critical counter-argument. The essays collected here explore the political landscapes that make the state itself both a vector for and victim of this disease (Abramowitz, Ammann, Batty, Ferme, Harman, Nguyen); they write of the social realities of funeral practices, both their limits and their potential for change (Richards); they write of the media coverage of the disease and the complex ways in which information flows in and around the region (McGovern); they write of the way Ebola discourse has entered popular culture (Benton, Tucker), occult narratives (Bolten), and the diasporic imaginary (Sayegh, Wesley); and they write of the complicated ways it links to the region’s history of violence (Schroven, Soderstrom).



Posts in This Series

Introduction: Ebola In Perspective

Introduction: Ebola In Perspective

There is a common thread running through the international coverage of the Ebola epidemic in the three countries of West Africa’s Mano River Union (Guinea, Sier... More

Ebola in Guinea: Revealing the State of the State

Ebola in Guinea: Revealing the State of the State

While people in this poverty- and conflict-ridden region of West Africa are struggling to meet the Ebola challenge, the international public attention has retur... More

Bushmeat and the Politics of Disgust

Bushmeat and the Politics of Disgust

"Can we not splatter the monkey all over me, please? Oh my God. I'm getting fucking pegged with Ebola monkey right now. I'm getting fragged with Ebola monkey." ... More

Reinventing “Others” in a Time of Ebola

Reinventing “Others” in a Time of Ebola

Ebola invaded Sierra Leone using an eerily similar path as Revolutionary United Front rebels twenty-three years ago. From Kailahun, the farthest eastern distric... More

Village Funerals and the Spread of Ebola Virus Disease

Village Funerals and the Spread of Ebola Virus Disease

This piece is extracted from a longer, multi-authored study of Ebola virus disease (EVD) currently in preparation.The greatest numbers of Ebola virus disease (E... More

Hospital Diaries: Experiences with Public Health in Sierra Leone

Hospital Diaries: Experiences with Public Health in Sierra Leone

Early coverage of the Ebola (EVD) epidemic in Guinea, Sierra Leone, and Liberia highlighted the public health risks presented by widespread lack of trust in gov... More

Beats, Rhymes and Ebola

Beats, Rhymes and Ebola

If there was ever a barometer for the mood of the people towards a specific event, outbreak, or crisis in West Africa it would have to be popular music. The Man... More

Articulating the Invisible: Ebola Beyond Witchcraft in Sierra Leone

Articulating the Invisible: Ebola Beyond Witchcraft in Sierra Leone

Sierra Leoneans use the language of witchcraft to describe the evils of living antisocially, with witches the epitome of the inhuman behaviors of isolation, sel... More

Ebola in Liberia: A Threat to Human Security and Peace

Ebola in Liberia: A Threat to Human Security and Peace

The following analysis of the Liberian response toward Ebola is based on my fieldwork in Monrovia at the onset of Ebola in late March and my continuous correspo... More

Ebola and the Health Care Crisis in Liberia

Ebola and the Health Care Crisis in Liberia

The Ebola disease seems to be out of control in Liberia. Media outlets recount the horrific litany of death, disease, and more death. The horror has given rise ... More

How the Liberian Health Sector Became a Vector for Ebola

How the Liberian Health Sector Became a Vector for Ebola

In late July 2014, one story from the Ebola outbreak caught my eye in a Friends of Liberia newsfeed. During a visit to a family of Ebola orphans, a health worke... More

The Epidemic Will be Militarized: Watching Outbreak as the West African Ebola Epidemic Unfolds

The Epidemic Will be Militarized: Watching Outbreak as the West African Ebola Epidemic Unfolds

In mid-August 2014, infectious-disease physician Celine Gounder wrote an essay titled, “Remember the Movie ‘Outbreak’? Yeah, Ebola’s Not Really Like That.” On m... More

Schooling, Urgency, and Hope For Movement Ahead of The Ebola Crisis in Liberia: Perspectives from Recent Fieldwork

Schooling, Urgency, and Hope For Movement Ahead of The Ebola Crisis in Liberia: Perspectives from Recent Fieldwork

In this essay, I discuss the importance of schooling, in light of the Ebola outbreak. The Liberian President's order to suspend schooling in August had signific... More

Ebola and the Ex-Combatant Community

Ebola and the Ex-Combatant Community

The current outbreak of Ebola in the West African region is likely to have repercussions on many levels after the epidemic is over. The burdens of war still res... More

Liberia’s Ebola Epidemic: Did the Government Fall Asleep at the Wheel?

Liberia’s Ebola Epidemic: Did the Government Fall Asleep at the Wheel?

Liberia’s Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, Africa’s first female president has led for nearly a decade now, but it took the Ebola virus epidemic to reveal how fragile, ho... More

Ebola: How We Became Unprepared, and What Might Come Next

Ebola: How We Became Unprepared, and What Might Come Next

On September 4th, a twenty-three-year-old Guinean student, M, arrived at ABC, a busy Paris hospital, complaining of fever, night sweats, and fatigue. He had rec... More