Connecting global health interventions and lived experiences: suspending ‘normality’ at funerals in rural Tanzania

Dunn, C.E.; Le Mare, A.; Makungu, C.

doi:10.1080/14649365.2015.1031685

Connecting global health interventions and lived experiences: suspending ‘normality’ at funerals in rural Tanzania

Dunn, C.E.; Le Mare, A.; Makungu, C.

Authors

C.E. Dunn

A. Le Mare

C. Makungu

Abstract

In this paper, we use the funeral space and its liminal nature as a milieu for exploring how a ‘modern’ health intervention, the mosquito bednet, is negotiated by its recipients in relation to its (non)-usage in such spaces. With a focus on sleeping arrangements at funerals and drawing on empirical data from participants living in rural southern Tanzania, we discuss how the bednet is linked to the notion of being unsympathetic to the death. Viewed as a symbol of modernity and a reflection of wealth and individual pride, the bednet becomes physically and symbolically inappropriate in the more sacred, ‘in-between’ site of the funeral. We also uncover how risk perceptions regarding malaria transmission are re-cast in funeral spaces, with socio-cultural practices and health-related behaviours being simultaneously ‘risky’ for individual mourners and reinforcing in terms of group social cohesion. As individual mourners' concerns about malaria risks are suspended, notions of pain and discomfort come to the fore as part of the mourning process and respect for the deceased.

Citation

Dunn, C., Le Mare, A., & Makungu, C. (2016). Connecting global health interventions and lived experiences: suspending ‘normality’ at funerals in rural Tanzania. Social and Cultural Geography, 17(2), 262-281. https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2015.1031685

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Feb 16, 2015
Online Publication Date	May 28, 2015
Publication Date	Feb 1, 2016
Deposit Date	Apr 1, 2015
Publicly Available Date	Nov 28, 2016
Journal	Social and Cultural Geography
Print ISSN	1464-9365
Electronic ISSN	1470-1197
Publisher	Taylor and Francis Group
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	17
Issue	2
Pages	262-281
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1080/14649365.2015.1031685
Keywords	Liminality, Funerals, Global health, Mosquito bednets, Tanzania.
Public URL	https://durham-repository.worktribe.com/output/1434668

Files

Accepted Journal Article (518 Kb)
PDF

Copyright Statement
This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis Group in Social and Cultural Geography on 28/05/2015, available online at: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/14649365.2015.1031685.