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HealthSociety

The biopolitics of the African smoking epidemic

This research project examines recent international efforts to address the growing non-communicable disease (NCD) burden in sub-Saharan Africa. Specifically, it explores global health initiatives to control the smoking epidemic on the subcontinent funded by charities like the American Cancer Society, development agencies and philanthropies like the Gates and Bloomberg foundations over the last twenty years. Led by transnational networks of public health experts, doctors, economists, lawyers and health activists working for the World Health Organisation, the World Bank, the Centers for Disease Control, civil society groups like the Campaign for Tobacco Free Kids and public health schools, these initiative have sought to build anti-smoking movements and pass tobacco control policies across Africa. 

Using an innovative, multi-sited qualitative research methodology and drawing on science and technology studies, the project examines the following four questions:

  1. How do these experts and activists imagine and construct Africa and the African smoking epidemic?
  2.  How do these experts and activists picture and make the African tobacco control advocate?
  3. What notions of population are articulated around the new practices of surveillance and quantification promoted by these initiatives?
  4.  How does a health policy like tobacco taxation, with its assumptions about society and smokers, travel from North America to Africa?

Work that has informed The biopolitics of the African smoking epidemic includes:

Publications

Reubi, D. (2019). Pathologies of modernization: Epidemiological imaginaries and the smoking epidemic in post-colonial Africa. In: M. Vaughan, K. Adjaye-Gbewonyo and M. Mika (Eds.), Epidemiological Change and Chronic Disease in Sub-Saharan Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives. London: University College London Press.

Reubi, D. (2018). Epidemiological accountability: Philanthropists, global health and the audit of saving lives. Economy & Society, 47(1), 83-110.

Reubi, D. (2018). A genealogy of epidemiological reason: Saving lives, social surveys and global population. Biosocieties, 13(1), 81-102.

Reubi, D. (2017). Rational sin: How Chicago economics remade global public health. Limn, 9, 69-101.

Herrick, C. and Reubi, D. (Eds.). (2017). Global Health and Geographical Imaginaries. London: Routledge.

Reubi, D. (2017). Temporal and spatial imaginaries of global health: Tobacco, non-communicable diseases and modernity. In: C. Herrick and D. Reubi (Eds.), Global Health and Geographical Imaginaries. (pp.22-39). London: Routledge.

Reubi, D. (2016). Of neoliberalism and global health: Human capital, market failure and sin/social taxes. Critical Public Health, 26(5), 481-486.

Berridge, V. and Reubi, D. (2016). The internationalisation of tobacco control, 1950-2010. Medical History, 60(4), 453-472.

Brown, T., Herrick, C. and Reubi, D. (2016). The politics of non-communicable diseases in the global south. Health & Place, 39, 179-187.

Reubi, D. (2016). Modernisation, smoking and chronic disease: Of temporality and spatiality in global health. Health & Place, 39, 188-195.

Reubi, D. (2013). Constructing tobacco control as a human rights issue: Smoking, lawyers and the judicialisation of the right to health. In A. Mold and D. Reubi (Eds.). Assembling Health Rights in Global Perspective: Genealogies and Anthropologies. (pp. 109-126). London: Routledge.

Reubi, D. (2013). Health economists, tobacco control and international development: On the economisation of global health beyond neoliberal structural adjustment policies. BioSocieties, 8, 205-228.

Reubi, D. (2012). Making a human right to tobacco control: Expert and advocacy networks, framing and the right to health. Global Public Health, 7(S2), S176-S190.

Conferences

Workshops

2015

2-3 October, International Workshop on the Politics of Non-Communicable Diseases in the Global South. King's College London. Organisers: Reubi, D., Brown, T., Benne, D. and Jensen, N. Funding: Wellcome Trust and Economic and Social Research Council. 

More information about this workshop.

 

Work that has informed The biopolitics of the African smoking epidemic includes:

Publications

Reubi, D. (2019). Pathologies of modernization: Epidemiological imaginaries and the smoking epidemic in post-colonial Africa. In: M. Vaughan, K. Adjaye-Gbewonyo and M. Mika (Eds.), Epidemiological Change and Chronic Disease in Sub-Saharan Africa: Historical and Anthropological Perspectives. London: University College London Press.

Reubi, D. (2018). Epidemiological accountability: Philanthropists, global health and the audit of saving lives. Economy & Society, 47(1), 83-110.

Reubi, D. (2018). A genealogy of epidemiological reason: Saving lives, social surveys and global population. Biosocieties, 13(1), 81-102.

Reubi, D. (2017). Rational sin: How Chicago economics remade global public health. Limn, 9, 69-101.

Herrick, C. and Reubi, D. (Eds.). (2017). Global Health and Geographical Imaginaries. London: Routledge.

Reubi, D. (2017). Temporal and spatial imaginaries of global health: Tobacco, non-communicable diseases and modernity. In: C. Herrick and D. Reubi (Eds.), Global Health and Geographical Imaginaries. (pp.22-39). London: Routledge.

Reubi, D. (2016). Of neoliberalism and global health: Human capital, market failure and sin/social taxes. Critical Public Health, 26(5), 481-486.

Berridge, V. and Reubi, D. (2016). The internationalisation of tobacco control, 1950-2010. Medical History, 60(4), 453-472.

Brown, T., Herrick, C. and Reubi, D. (2016). The politics of non-communicable diseases in the global south. Health & Place, 39, 179-187.

Reubi, D. (2016). Modernisation, smoking and chronic disease: Of temporality and spatiality in global health. Health & Place, 39, 188-195.

Reubi, D. (2013). Constructing tobacco control as a human rights issue: Smoking, lawyers and the judicialisation of the right to health. In A. Mold and D. Reubi (Eds.). Assembling Health Rights in Global Perspective: Genealogies and Anthropologies. (pp. 109-126). London: Routledge.

Reubi, D. (2013). Health economists, tobacco control and international development: On the economisation of global health beyond neoliberal structural adjustment policies. BioSocieties, 8, 205-228.

Reubi, D. (2012). Making a human right to tobacco control: Expert and advocacy networks, framing and the right to health. Global Public Health, 7(S2), S176-S190.

Conferences

Workshops

2015

2-3 October, International Workshop on the Politics of Non-Communicable Diseases in the Global South. King's College London. Organisers: Reubi, D., Brown, T., Benne, D. and Jensen, N. Funding: Wellcome Trust and Economic and Social Research Council. 

More information about this workshop.

 

Project status: Ongoing

Principal Investigator

Funding

Funding Body: Wellcome Trust

Amount: £220,000

Period: January 2014 - May 2019

Keywords

BIOPOLITICSAFRICAGLOBAL HEALTH