Social scientists’ views on Covid-19 in Southern Africa (9)

Paul Richard, Ebola. How a people’s science helped end an epidemic, Chicago University Press, 2016 : https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/distributed/E/bo25073163.html

How a People’s Science Helped End an Epidemic is the title of a recent book dedicated to the role played by social scientists in the fight against the last great epidemic in Africa.

Leslie Bank, a professor of social anthropology at Walter Sisulu University (Mthatha, South Africa), supports the idea that social sciences are an important tool to tackle the current Covid-19 epidemic.

In fact, an in-depth knowledge of social and anthropological realities enables to go far beyond the « one-size-fits-all » strategy adopted by the government in South Africa since the beginning of the crisis.