COOKING DATA: CULTURE AND POLITICS IN AN AFRICAN RESEARCH WORLD
Dr. Crystal Biruk
Assistant Professor of Anthropology
Oberlin College and Conservatory
Date: Friday, March 1, 2018
Time: 12:00PM – 2:00PM
Venue: Rm 108, 155 College Street, TORONTO, ON, M5T 1P8
Abstract: This talk is based on the author’s ethnography of the production of quantitative data by survey projects in Africa. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork in Malawi with demographic projects in sites ranging from questionnaire design meetings, trainings for data collectors, fieldworker-led data collection in the field, and policy venues, this talk presents a fine-grained analysis of data’s handling by diverse actors to critically examine the criteria and metrics that help numbers in the era of global health attain their legitimacy.
Bio: Dr. Crystal Biruk’s research centers on the ethics and politics of intervention in the global South. Dr. Biruk takes interest in how the growing presence of humanitarian, development, and scientific projects in sub-Saharan Africa reconfigures local social geographies, producing new kinds of status, mobility, expertise, and exclusions.
*This talk is co-hosted with/at the Dalla Lana School of Public Health
*The 2018-2019 Development Seminar series is co-sponsored with the Technoscience Research Unit