Andrew Lakoff

Global Health in a Time of Emergency

Unprepared

A continuous state of readiness -- The generic biological threat -- Two regimes of global health -- Real-time biopolitics -- A fragile assemblage -- Diagnosing failure -- Epilogue

Stephen J. Collier

The product of collaboration between anthropologists, geographers, sociologists, and even a chemist, this volume delves into the design and implementation of 'global' bio-security interventions.

Global Health & Security in Question

Biosecurity Interventions

Stephen J Collier

"In the middle decades of the twentieth century, in the wake of economic depression, war, and in the midst of the Cold War, an array of technical experts and government officials developed a substantial body of expertise to contain and manage the disruptions to American society caused by unprecedented threats. Today the tools invented by these mid-twentieth century administrative reformers are largely taken for granted, assimilated into the everyday workings of government. As Stephen Collier and Andrew Lakoff argue in this book, the American government's current practices of disaster management can be traced back to this era. Collier and Lakoff argue that an understanding of the history of this initial formation of the "emergency state" is essential to an appreciation of the distinctive ways that the U.S. government deals with crises and emergencies-or fails to deal with them-today. This book focuses on historical episodes in emergency or disaster planning and management. Some of these episodes are well-known and have often been studied, while others are little-remembered today. The significance of these planners and managers is not that they were responsible for momentous technical innovations or that all their schemes were realized successfully. Their true significance lies in the fact that they formulated a way of understanding and governing emergencies that has come to be taken for granted"--

Vital Systems, Expertise, and the Politics of Security

The Government of Emergency

Andrew Lakoff argues that a new 'pharmaceutical' way of thinking about and acting upon mental disorder is coming to reshape not only the field of psychiatry, but also our very notions of self. Drawing from a comprehensive ethnography of psychiatric practice in Argentina (a country which boasts the most psychoanalysts per capita in the world) Lakoff looks at new ways of understanding and intervening in human behaviour. He charts the globalization of pharmacology, particularily the global impact of US psychiatry and US models of illness, and further illustrates the clashes, conflicts, alliances and reformulations that take place when psychoanalytic and psychopharmacological models of illness and cure meet. Highlighting the social and political implications that these new forms of expertise about human behaviour and human thought bring, Lakoff presents an arresting case-study that will appeal to scholars and students alike.

Knowledge and Value in Global Psychiatry

Pharmaceutical Reason

Adriana Petryna

Arthur Kleinman

In some parts of the world spending on pharmaceuticals is astronomical. In others people do not have access to basic or life-saving drugs. Individuals struggle to afford medications; whole populations are neglected, considered too poor to constitute profitable markets for the development and distribution of necessary drugs. The ethnographies brought together in this timely collection analyze both the dynamics of the burgeoning international pharmaceutical trade and the global inequalities that emerge from and are reinforced by market-driven medicine. They demonstrate that questions about who will be treated and who will not filter through every phase of pharmaceutical production, from preclinical research to human testing, marketing, distribution, prescription, and consumption. Whether considering how American drug companies seek to create a market for antidepressants in Japan, how Brazil has created a model HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment program, or how the urban poor in Delhi understand and access healthcare, these essays illuminate the roles of corporations, governments, NGOs, and individuals in relation to global pharmaceuticals. Some essays show how individual and communal identities are affected by the marketing and availability of medications. Among these are an exploration of how the pharmaceutical industry shapes popular and expert understandings of mental illness in North America and Great Britain. There is also an examination of the agonizing choices facing Ugandan families trying to finance AIDS treatment. Several essays explore the inner workings of the emerging international pharmaceutical regime. One looks at the expanding quest for clinical research subjects; another at the entwining of science and business interests in the Argentine market for psychotropic medications. By bringing the moral calculations involved in the production and distribution of pharmaceuticals into stark relief, this collection charts urgent new territory for social scientific research. Contributors. Kalman Applbaum, João Biehl, Ranendra K. Das, Veena Das, David Healy, Arthur Kleinman, Betty Kyaddondo, Andrew Lakoff, Anne Lovell, Lotte Meinert, Adriana Petryna, Michael A. Whyte, Susan Reynolds Whyte

Andrew Lakoff

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