Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-g7gxr Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-20T04:12:22.616Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Imagining viral hepatitis in Burkina Faso

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Tamara Giles-Vernick  and
Fabienne Hejoaka
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article explores ‘imaginings’ around hepatitis B in Burkina Faso and their historical genealogies. Hepatitis B is a viral infection afflicting the liver, but asymptomatic carriers may fall ill decades after exposure to the virus. Drawing from ethnographic interviews, we analyse how people living with hepatitis B in Burkina Faso grapple with incertitude about the course of their infections, the possibilities for healing and their illness's influence on social relations by ‘imagining’: that is, diverging momentarily from narratives about their diagnostic and therapeutic pathways to imagine alternative pasts and future consequences of this illness. We investigate how those living with hepatitis B use these imaginings to grapple with absences – of a certain future, of knowledge and of care – the historical genealogies that give rise to these absences, and their longer-term consequences. These ephemeral imaginings emerge from an ‘entanglement’ of the virus, epidemiological incertitude about its course and absences within Burkina Faso's health system and global health policies, which are themselves the consequence of specific historical processes.

Résumé

Résumé

Cet article explore les « imaginaires » de l'hépatite B au Burkina Faso et leurs généalogies. L'hépatite B (VHB) est une infection virale touchant le foie, dont les porteurs chroniques peuvent longtemps demeurer asymptomatiques et tomber malade plusieurs décennies après avoir contacté le virus. A partir des entretiens et d'observations ethnographiques, nous analysons comment les patients font face aux incertitudes liées à l’évolution de la maladie, aux perspectives de guérison et à l'influence de l'infection sur les relations sociales. Se distanciant des récits de leurs itinéraires diagnostiques et thérapeutiques, ils imaginent d'autres passés et les conséquences futurs de cette maladie. Nous étudions comment ces personnes vivant avec l'hépatite B utilisent ces rêves pour gérer certaines absences d'un avenir, de savoirs, de soins, des généalogies historiques qui ont produit ces absences, et leurs conséquences au long-terme. Ces rêves éphémères sont produits par l'enracinement du virus, de l'incertitude épidémiologique, ainsi que des absences au sein du système de santé Burkinabé et des politiques de santé globale, qui sont elles-mêmes le résultat des processus historiques spécifiques.

Type
Dreaming histories
Information
Africa , Volume 90 , Special Issue 1: Beyond realism: Africa's medical dreams , January 2020 , pp. 77 - 94
Copyright
Copyright © International African Institute 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bachelard, G. (1961) La poétique de la rêverie. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.Google Scholar
Bado, J.-P. (1996) Médecine coloniale et grandes endémies en Afrique. Paris: Karthala.Google Scholar
Bonnet, D. (1986) Représentations culturelles du paludisme chez les Moose du Burkina. Ouagadougou: ORSTOM.Google Scholar
Borneman, J. (2011) ‘Daydreaming, intimacy and the intersubjective third in fieldwork encounters in Syria’, American Ethnologist 38 (2): 234–48.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brown, H. and Kelly, A. (2014) ‘Material proximities and hotspots: toward an anthropology of hemorrhagic fevers’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 28 (2): 280–303.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Brugha, R., Starling, M. and Walt, G. (2002) ‘GAVI, the first steps: lessons for the Global Fund’, Lancet 359 (9304): 435–8.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Chen, D. S., Locarnini, S. and Wallace, J. (2015) ‘From the big three to the big four’, Lancet Infectious Diseases 15: 626–7.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cowie, B. C. and MacLachlan, J. H. (2013) ‘The global burden of liver disease attributable to hepatitis B, hepatitis C, and alcohol: increasing mortality, differing causes’, Hepatology 58: 218A–19A.Google Scholar
Dacher, M. (1990) Les représentations de la maladie chez les goins. Ouagadougou: EHESS-ORSTOM.Google Scholar
Dionne, K. Y., Gerland, P. and Watkins, S. (2013) ‘AIDS exceptionalism: another constituency heard from’, AIDS Behavior 17 (3): 825–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Eboko, F., Bourdier, F., Broqua, C. and Raynaut, C. (2011) Les Suds face au sida: quand la société civile se mobilise. Marseille: Éditions IRD.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Edmunds, W. J., Medley, G. F., Nokes, D. J., O'Callaghan, C. J., Whittle, H. C. and Hall, A. J. (1996) ‘Epidemiological patterns of hepatitis B virus (HBV) in highly endemic areas’, Epidemiology and Infection 117 (2): 313–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fontein, J. (2011) ‘Graves, ruins, and belonging: towards an anthropology of proximity’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 17: 706–27.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Geissler, P. W. (2013) ‘Public secrets in public health: knowing not to know while making scientific knowledge’, American Ethnologist 40 (1): 13–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Giles-Vernick, T., Traoré, A. and Bainilago, L. (2016) ‘Incertitude, hepatitis B and infant vaccination in West and Central Africa’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly 30 (2): 203–21.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Giles-Vernick, T., Traoré, A. and Sirima, B. (2011) ‘Malaria, environmental change, and an historical epidemiology of childhood “cold fevers”: popular interpretations from southwestern Burkina Faso’, Health and Place 17: 836–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, N. R. (2008) ‘An acoustic register, tenacious images, and Congolese scenes of rape and repetition’, Current Anthropology 23 (2): 220–53.Google Scholar
Hunt, N. R. (2014) ‘Espace, temporalité et rêverie: écrire l'histoire des futures au Congo belge’, Politique Africaine 135: 115–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hunt, N. R. (2016) A Nervous State: violence, remedies, and reverie in colonial Congo. Durham NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Ingold, T. (2011) Being Alive: essays on movement, knowledge and description. London: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
INSD (2013) ‘Population des principales villes’. Ouagadougou: Institut National de la Statistique et de la Démographie (INSD) <http://www.insd.bf/n/contenu/Tableaux/T0314.htm>, accessed 20 December 2015.,+accessed+20+December+2015.>Google Scholar
Last, M. (1981) ‘The importance of knowing about not knowing’, Social Science and Medicine 15 (3): 387–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lemoine, M., Nayagam, S. and Thursz, M. (2013) ‘Viral hepatitis in resource-limited countries and access to antiviral therapies: current and future challenges’, Future Virology 8 (4): 371–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Littlewood, R. (ed.) (2007) On Knowing and Not Knowing in the Anthropology of Medicine. Walnut Creek CA: Left Coast Press.Google Scholar
Lock, M. (2013) ‘The epigenome and nature/nurture reunification: a challenge for anthropology’, Medical Anthropology: Cross-cultural Studies in Health and Illness 32 (4): 291–308.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Lock, M. and Kaufert, P. (2001) ‘Menopause, local biologies and cultures of aging’, American Journal of Human Biology 13 (4): 494–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lock, M. and Nguyen, V.-K. (2010) An Anthropology of Biomedicine. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar
Mair, J., Kelly, A. and High, C. (2012) ‘Introduction: making ignorance an ethnographic object’ in High, C., Kelly, A. and Mair, J. (eds), The Anthropology of Ignorance: an ethnographic approach. New York NY: Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar
Manderson, L. and Morris-Smith, C. (2011) Chronic Conditions, Fluid States. New Brunswick NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Moyer, E. and Hardon, A. (2014) ‘A disease like any other? Why HIV remains exceptional in the age of treatment’, Medical Anthropology 33 (4): 263–9.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nading, A. (2014) Mosquito Trails: ecology, health and the politics of entanglement. Berkeley CA: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nguyen, V.-K. (2010) The Republic of Therapy: triage and sovereignty in West Africa's time of AIDS. Durham NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ridde, V. (2008) ‘“The problem of the worst-off is dealt with after all other issues”: the equity and health policy implementation gap in Burkina Faso’, Social Science and Medicine 66: 1368–78.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Samuelsen, H. (2001) ‘Infusions of health: the popularity of vaccines among Bisa in Burkina Faso’, Anthropology and Medicine 8: 163–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schweitzer, A., Horn, J., Mikolajczyk, R. T., Krause, G. and Ott, J. J. (2015) ‘Estimations of worldwide prevalence of chronic hepatitis B virus infection: a systematic review of data published between 1965 and 2013’, Lancet 386 (10003): 1546–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Setbon, M. (2000) ‘La normalisation paradoxale du sida’, Revue Française de Sociologie 41 (1): 61–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shepard, C. W., Simard, E. P., Finelli, L., Fiore, A. E. and Bell, B. P. (2006) ‘Hepatitis B virus infection: epidemiology and vaccination’, Epidemiological Reviews 28: 112–25.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shimakawa, Y., Yan, H.-J., Tsuchiya, N., Bottomley, C. and Hall, A. J. (2013) ‘Association of early age at establishment of chronic hepatitis B infection with persistent viral replication, liver cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma: a systematic review’, PLoS One 8 (7): e69430.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Shimakawa, Y., Lemoine, M., Bottomley, C. et al. (2015a) ‘Birth order and risk of hepatocellular carcinoma in chronic carriers of hepatitis B virus: a case-control study in the Gambia’, Liver International 35 (10): 2318–26.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shimakawa, Y., Coumba, T.-K., Mendy, M., Thurs, M. and Lemoine, M. (2015b) ‘Mother-to-child transmission of hepatitis B in sub-Saharan Africa’, Lancet Infectious Diseases 16 (1): 19–20.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stirling, A. (2007) ‘Risk, precaution and science: toward a more constructive policy debate’, EMBO Reports 8: 309–14.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, C. (2002) ‘Modern social imaginaries’, Public Culture 14 (1): 91–124.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Timmermans, S. and Buchbinder, M. (2013) Saving Babies: the consequences of newborn genetic screening. Chicago IL: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
WHO (2015) Guidelines for the Prevention, Care and Treatment of Persons with Chronic Hepatitis B Infection. Geneva: World Health Organization (WHO) <http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/154590/1/9789241549059_eng.pdf?ua=1>, accessed 20 October 2019.,+accessed+20+October+2019.>Google Scholar