Cooking Data : Culture and Politics in an African Research World /

"In Cooking Data Crystal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi to rethink the production of quantitative health data. While research practices are often understood within a clean/dirty binary, Biruk shows that data is never clean; rathe...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Biruk, Crystal (Author)
Format: Electronic eBook
Language:English
Published: Durham : Duke University Press, 2018.
Series:Book collections on Project MUSE.
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Online Access:Full text available:
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Summary:"In Cooking Data Crystal Biruk offers an ethnographic account of research into the demographics of HIV and AIDS in Malawi to rethink the production of quantitative health data. While research practices are often understood within a clean/dirty binary, Biruk shows that data is never clean; rather, it is always 'cooked' during its production and inevitably entangled with the lives of those who produce it. Examining how the relationships among fieldworkers, supervisors, respondents, and foreign demographers shape data, Biruk examines the ways in which units of information--such as survey questions and numbers written onto questionnaires by fieldworkers--acquire value as statistics that go on to shape national AIDS policy. Her approach illustrates how on-the-ground dynamics and research cultures mediate the production of global health statistics in ways that impact local economies and formulations of power and expertise."--
Physical Description:1 online resource (296 pages).
ISBN:9780822371823
Access:Open Access