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

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

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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 Mar 28, 2024
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.

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