With speakers David Reubi, Thandeka Cochrane, Jenn Fraser

In this seminar, we will sketch the outline of a book manuscript, provisionally entitled Cartographies of Cancer, on which we are currently working as part of our Wellcome-funded Cartographies of Cancer project (http://cartographiesofcancer.org).

Every year, the WHO’s International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) publishes maps of Africa’s cancer burden on its Global Cancer Observatory website. These maps serve as the gold-standard for information on the incidence and mortality of cancer in Africa, shaping how cancer is seen on the continent and informing everything from health policy and research agendas to oncological care and pharmaceutical markets. Like many of the other epidemiological maps that dominate and structure contemporary global health, IARC’s cancer maps are conceived as neutral representations of scientific data and medical realities and rarely questioned by stakeholders in the field.

Cartographies of Cancer complicates these conceptualisations of maps as simple scientific representations; through a longue durée analysis of IARC’s cancer maps since the early 20th century, it suggests that these representations rest upon fragmentary data and often invisible forms of labour, and hide within them uncomfortable imperial histories that live on in current tensions and inequalities. Drawing on extensive archival research and ethnographic fieldwork, the book sheds light on the enduring colonial entanglements, shifting imaginaries of Africa, materialities and modes of surveillance, and new subjectivities and socialities that come together to produce these maps and the stories they tell about malignancy south of the Sahara. Cartographies of Cancer not only outlines an untold genealogy and ethnography of cancer mapping and epidemiology in Africa, but also troubles the self-evident nature of global health maps to reveal them as fraught and fragile scientific objects.

Speakers

David Reubi is a sociologist and anthropologist at King’s working on the politics of knowledge and knowledge making in global health.

Thandeka Cochrane is a social anthropologist and historian at King’s interested in epistemic entanglements, how knowledge moves and colonialism and postcolonialism in Africa.

Jenn Fraser is medical historian who has previously worked on the history of Artic cancer registration.

Please note: If you are a King's staff member or student and wish to attend in person, please select the King's ticket option or contact Dr Gabrielle Samuel at gabrielle.samuel@kcl.ac.uk. For all other attendees, the event will be available online only and the link will be sent once you register.