Cancer, Private Healthcare and the Middle Class: Perspectives from Kenya

Date
Dec 6 , 2022 

Online pre­sen­ta­tion at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bayreuth


You are warm­ly invit­ed to join us online for this week’s Anthro­pol­o­gy Col­lo­qui­um at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Bayreuth, on Tues­day, 6th Decem­ber from 630–8pm CET (530–7pm GMT).

We are delight­ed to wel­come Prof. Ruth Prince (Uni­ver­si­ty of Oslo)who will be giv­ing the paper, Can­cer, Pri­vate Health­care and the Mid­dle Class: Per­spec­tives from Kenya.

Abstract:

A nov­el land­scape of health­care and can­cer treat­ment is emerg­ing in Kenya at the inter­sec­tion between an emerg­ing can­cer epi­dem­ic, expand­ing med­ical and health insur­ance mar­kets, a mid­dle class with access to cred­it, and the con­tin­ued evis­cer­a­tion of pub­lic health­care. Fol­low­ing mid­dle-class can­cer patients and their fam­i­lies as they nav­i­gate these land­scapes, I explore the dou­ble binds of can­cer treat­ment as a shift­ing geog­ra­phy of state-of-the-art med­ical tech­nolo­gies in pri­vate facil­i­ties opens up hori­zons of med­ical care just with­in or just beyond reach. Fam­i­lies find them­selves vul­ner­a­ble both to an extrac­tive med­ical mar­ket­place ori­en­tat­ed to mak­ing prof­its and to the ‘ordi­nary cri­sis’ of state health­care under­mined by aus­ter­i­ty and neglect. Explor­ing inter­sec­tions between med­ical, health, and eco­nom­ic pre­car­i­ties as health­care is pri­va­tized and peo­ple are pushed into debt while the state dis­in­vests in pub­lic goods, I explore entan­gle­ments between bio­cap­i­tal, neolib­er­al­ism, chron­ic dis­ease, and the mid­dle class in Kenya.

 

You are most wel­come to join us on Zoom:

We look for­ward to see­ing you there!

Very best,

Koreen

 

Dr. Koreen M. Reece

Assis­tant Professor/Akademische Rätin, Social Anthropology

Uni­ver­sität Bayreuth

Koreen.Reece@uni-bayreuth.de