Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science, Jul 12, 2021
The central conflict facing policymakers, the voluntary sector, and communities during the Covid-... more The central conflict facing policymakers, the voluntary sector, and communities during the Covid-19 pandemic has been how to keep safe from a virus that is transmitted by social contact while also providing vital support to those in need. This report shows the innovative ways people and organisations have responded to this challenge. They have adapted and built new networks of kinship and care within and between families, friends, and communities. We call these "social infrastructures" and this report shows that economic life and pandemic recovery relies on the strength of these foundational relations. It presents the findings from 12 months of ethnographic, participatory, and quantitative research. In the UK, local and rapid response initiatives saved lives as voluntary sector, religious organisations, and Community Champions built on these relations of care to provide mental health advice, sign-posting to services and vaccine uptake. These innovative social projects also helped people to grieve and recover from losses of life and livelihoods. We argue that both short-and long-term investment in these interlinked social infrastructures is crucial for post-Covid recovery in the UK.
London School of Economics and Political Science, Jul 14, 2021
Besides 'the economy' and 'health' lies a neglected area of human life during the pandemic: socia... more Besides 'the economy' and 'health' lies a neglected area of human life during the pandemic: social infrastructures. These vital links, sustained by families and communities, now need to be a priority. The LSE COVID and Care Recovery Group call for both urgent and long term help for voluntary and community groups.
Michiel Baas. Muscular India: Masculinity, mobility & the new middle class. New Delhi: Context, 2... more Michiel Baas. Muscular India: Masculinity, mobility & the new middle class. New Delhi: Context, 2020. Alice Tilche. Adivasi art and activism: Curation in a nationalist age. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022. Sanderien Verstappen. New lives in Anand: Building a Muslim hub in Western India. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022.
Community-based mental health initiatives are uniquely positioned to understand the mental health... more Community-based mental health initiatives are uniquely positioned to understand the mental health needs of their local population and provide relevant, culturally appropriate and sustainable responses. However, at the grassroots level, mental health initiatives in low- and middle-income countries face key challenges, such as inadequate funding, barriers to demonstrating impact and difficulty engaging with stakeholders. The Ember Mental Health programme establishes 12-month partnerships with community-based mental health initiatives in low- and middle-income countries to support them to address these challenges, grow and achieve sustainability. This paper outlines a longitudinal qualitative study conducted to evaluate the 2020-2021 Ember Mental Health programme. Data were collected from March 2020 to March 2021 through semistructured interviews conducted with 11 initiatives at various time points throughout their Ember Mental Health partnership. A framework approach was used to analy...
The aim of this thesis is to examine the embodied and mental forms of distress - expressed as ten... more The aim of this thesis is to examine the embodied and mental forms of distress - expressed as tension – experienced by women of the Gaddi tribal community of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India. Tension is a polysemic term used across South Asia to describe the strains and scrapes of life, similar to 'worry' or 'stress' in Euro-American discourse. Amongst the Gaddi, the term provides a unique window into the intimate, embodied experience of politico-economic and social transformation. This community has experienced a rapid shift in livelihood over the past century, from agro-pastoralism to military service or waged labour. This has been paralleled by a transformation in structures of kinship, marriage and respectability, where the breakdown of the pastoral economy has precipitated the nuclearisation of the Gaddi household, increased control over women's work and sexuality, and rising wealth inequality between households. Drawing on fifteen months of ethnographic fiel...
1. When it comes to the question of how non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as lockdowns... more 1. When it comes to the question of how non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as lockdowns have impacted upon practices of care and relations of caregiving, research published during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic has made two things abundantly clear. The first is that reconfigurations of everyday life and social contact needed to slow the spread of the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (for example, via the implementation of 'lockdowns') have confronted people the world over with economic, personal and relational challenges that have been, for many, unprecedented in their duration and intensity.[1] In particular, the very truncation of social networks that makes lockdown measures effective at diminishing viral transmission between households risks depriving those households of the support they usually rely on to meet care needs. These forms of support could be formal, such as day-care centres and schooling, or informal, such as care provided by neighbours o...
Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic reached Aotearoa New Zealand, stringent lockdown measures las... more Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic reached Aotearoa New Zealand, stringent lockdown measures lasting 7 weeks were introduced to manage community spread of the virus. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study examining how lockdown measures impacted upon the lives of nurses, midwives and personal care assistants caring for community-based patients during this time. The study involved nationwide surveys and in-depth interviews with 15 registered nurses employed in community settings, two community midwives and five personal care assistants. During the lockdown, nurses, midwives and personal care assistants working in the community showed considerable courage in answering their 'call to duty' by taking on heightened care responsibilities and going 'the extra mile' to help others. They faced significant risks to personal and professional relationships when they were required to take on additional and complex responsibilities for community-based patients. Despite the hypervigilant monitoring of their personal protective equipment (PPE), the need to safeguard family and community members generated considerable stress and anxiety. Many also faced personal isolation and loneliness as a result of lockdown restrictions. Moreover, the negative impacts of experiences during lockdown often continued to be felt once restrictions had been lifted, inflecting life during periods in which community transmission of COVID-19 was not occurring. This article makes five core service delivery and policy recommendations for supporting community-based nurses, midwives and personal care assistants in respiratory disease pandemics: acknowledging the crucial role played by community-based carers and the associated stress and anxiety they endured by championing respect and compassion; demystifying the 'heroism' or 'self-sacrifice' projected onto care workers; the timely provision of adequate protective equipment; improving remuneration, with adequate provision for time off; and regular counselling, peer support groups and education on work-life balance delivered by support workers in recognition of stressors arising from these complex and isolated working conditions.
This report presents key findings from a 6-month ethnographic study on the impact of the Covid-19... more This report presents key findings from a 6-month ethnographic study on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on disadvantaged households and communities across the UK conducted by anthropologists from the London School of Economics, and associates. This research involved in-depth interviews and multiple surveys with people across communities in the UK, with particular focus on a number of case studies of intersecting disadvantage. Crucially, our research has found that Government policy can improve adherence to restrictions and reduce the negative impacts of the pandemic on disadvantaged communities by placing central importance on communities, social networks and households to the economy and social life. This would be the most effective way to increase public trust and adherence to Covid-19 measures, because it would recognise the suffering that communities have experienced and would build policy on the basis of what is most important to people - the thriving of their families and c...
Dealing with death and bereavement in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic will present significa... more Dealing with death and bereavement in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic will present significant challenges for at least the next three months. The current situation does not allow for families andbcommunities to be involved in the process of death in ways in which they would normally hope or expect to be. In addition, mortality rates will disproportionately affect vulnerable households. The government has identified the following communities as being at increased risk: single parent households; multi-generational Black and Minority Ethnic groups; men without degrees in lone households and/or in precarious work; small family business owners in their 50s; and elderlyhouseholds. Our study focused on these groups. This report presents a summary of findings and key recommendations by a team of anthropologists from the London School of Economics who conducted a public survey and 58 cross-community interviews between 3 and 9 April 2020. It explores ways to prepare these communities and...
Background Mobile phone-based interventions have been demonstrated in different settings to overc... more Background Mobile phone-based interventions have been demonstrated in different settings to overcome barriers to accessing critical psychosocial support. In this study, we aimed to assess the acceptability and feasibility of a phone-based, peer-to-peer support group intervention for adolescent pregnant women aged 15–24 years living with HIV in Zambia. Methods Sixty-one consenting participants were recruited from Antenatal Clinics of two large urban communities in Lusaka. They were invited to participate in the mobile phone-based intervention that allowed them to anonymously communicate in a small group led by a facilitator for 4 months. A mixed methods approach was used to assess acceptability and feasibility, including a focus group discussion, pre- and post-intervention interview and analysis of the content of the text message data generated. Results Participants reported finding the platform “not hard to use” and enjoyed the anonymity of the groups. Seventy-one percent of partici...
Khuluma is a psychosocial and peer-to-peer mHealth intervention that uses text messaging to facil... more Khuluma is a psychosocial and peer-to-peer mHealth intervention that uses text messaging to facilitate support groups for adolescents living with HIV (ALWH) with the aim of contributing toward positive health outcomes. Although use of mobile technology in the form of mHealth interventions has proliferated recently in the field of health, published literature describing methods and processes of its application are limited. We present a set of methods and processes utilised to develop and pilot the Khuluma mHealth intervention amongst young people (15–20 years) in South Africa. We recruited and enrolled 52 adolescents (15–20-year olds) from four clinics in Pretoria and Cape Town to participate in a 6-month pilot of Khuluma. Participants were ALWH, aware of their status, on antiretroviral therapy for more than 12 months, and not suffering from severe depression. We conducted four pre and post intervention focus group discussions (FGDs) with a proportion of ALWH (n = 36) enrolled in the...
Dealing with excess death in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the question of a ‘g... more Dealing with excess death in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the question of a ‘good or bad death’ into sharp relief as countries across the globe have grappled with multiple peaks of cases and mortality; and communities mourn those lost. In the UK, these challenges have included the fact that mortality has adversely affected minority communities. Corpse disposal and social distancing guidelines do not allow a process of mourning in which families and communities can be involved in the dying process. This study aimed to examine the main concerns of faith and non-faith communities across the UK in relation to death in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research team used rapid ethnographic methods to examine the adaptations to the dying process prior to hospital admission, during admission, during the disposal and release of the body, during funerals and mourning. The study revealed that communities were experiencing collective loss, were making necessary adapt...
Sites: a journal of social anthropology and cultural studies, 2021
COVID-19 stories, especially from Aotearoa New Zealand as one of the leading nations ‘winning’ ov... more COVID-19 stories, especially from Aotearoa New Zealand as one of the leading nations ‘winning’ over the virus will be important historical documentation. The ‘team of 5 million’ is writing its narratives of life with/out COVID-19 – stories of ‘living in bubbles’, of ‘being kind’ and ‘being in it together.’ These are narratives of success which need to be examined alongside the narratives that have been absent from public national discourse but complicate understandings of ‘winning.’ To that end, in this article we map out (alter)narratives from supermarket and healthcare workers and highlight their stories of living and caring under lockdown. We posit that we need to pay attention to (alter)narratives of winning over COVID-19 in order to pay attention to the bodies and spaces that are often invisible but make winning possible. Thus, we see (Alter)narratives not as counter or anti to the nation’s winning narrative, but rather essential and adjacent.
Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science, Jul 12, 2021
The central conflict facing policymakers, the voluntary sector, and communities during the Covid-... more The central conflict facing policymakers, the voluntary sector, and communities during the Covid-19 pandemic has been how to keep safe from a virus that is transmitted by social contact while also providing vital support to those in need. This report shows the innovative ways people and organisations have responded to this challenge. They have adapted and built new networks of kinship and care within and between families, friends, and communities. We call these "social infrastructures" and this report shows that economic life and pandemic recovery relies on the strength of these foundational relations. It presents the findings from 12 months of ethnographic, participatory, and quantitative research. In the UK, local and rapid response initiatives saved lives as voluntary sector, religious organisations, and Community Champions built on these relations of care to provide mental health advice, sign-posting to services and vaccine uptake. These innovative social projects also helped people to grieve and recover from losses of life and livelihoods. We argue that both short-and long-term investment in these interlinked social infrastructures is crucial for post-Covid recovery in the UK.
London School of Economics and Political Science, Jul 14, 2021
Besides 'the economy' and 'health' lies a neglected area of human life during the pandemic: socia... more Besides 'the economy' and 'health' lies a neglected area of human life during the pandemic: social infrastructures. These vital links, sustained by families and communities, now need to be a priority. The LSE COVID and Care Recovery Group call for both urgent and long term help for voluntary and community groups.
Michiel Baas. Muscular India: Masculinity, mobility & the new middle class. New Delhi: Context, 2... more Michiel Baas. Muscular India: Masculinity, mobility & the new middle class. New Delhi: Context, 2020. Alice Tilche. Adivasi art and activism: Curation in a nationalist age. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022. Sanderien Verstappen. New lives in Anand: Building a Muslim hub in Western India. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2022.
Community-based mental health initiatives are uniquely positioned to understand the mental health... more Community-based mental health initiatives are uniquely positioned to understand the mental health needs of their local population and provide relevant, culturally appropriate and sustainable responses. However, at the grassroots level, mental health initiatives in low- and middle-income countries face key challenges, such as inadequate funding, barriers to demonstrating impact and difficulty engaging with stakeholders. The Ember Mental Health programme establishes 12-month partnerships with community-based mental health initiatives in low- and middle-income countries to support them to address these challenges, grow and achieve sustainability. This paper outlines a longitudinal qualitative study conducted to evaluate the 2020-2021 Ember Mental Health programme. Data were collected from March 2020 to March 2021 through semistructured interviews conducted with 11 initiatives at various time points throughout their Ember Mental Health partnership. A framework approach was used to analy...
The aim of this thesis is to examine the embodied and mental forms of distress - expressed as ten... more The aim of this thesis is to examine the embodied and mental forms of distress - expressed as tension – experienced by women of the Gaddi tribal community of Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India. Tension is a polysemic term used across South Asia to describe the strains and scrapes of life, similar to 'worry' or 'stress' in Euro-American discourse. Amongst the Gaddi, the term provides a unique window into the intimate, embodied experience of politico-economic and social transformation. This community has experienced a rapid shift in livelihood over the past century, from agro-pastoralism to military service or waged labour. This has been paralleled by a transformation in structures of kinship, marriage and respectability, where the breakdown of the pastoral economy has precipitated the nuclearisation of the Gaddi household, increased control over women's work and sexuality, and rising wealth inequality between households. Drawing on fifteen months of ethnographic fiel...
1. When it comes to the question of how non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as lockdowns... more 1. When it comes to the question of how non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) such as lockdowns have impacted upon practices of care and relations of caregiving, research published during the first six months of the COVID-19 pandemic has made two things abundantly clear. The first is that reconfigurations of everyday life and social contact needed to slow the spread of the Novel Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (for example, via the implementation of 'lockdowns') have confronted people the world over with economic, personal and relational challenges that have been, for many, unprecedented in their duration and intensity.[1] In particular, the very truncation of social networks that makes lockdown measures effective at diminishing viral transmission between households risks depriving those households of the support they usually rely on to meet care needs. These forms of support could be formal, such as day-care centres and schooling, or informal, such as care provided by neighbours o...
Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic reached Aotearoa New Zealand, stringent lockdown measures las... more Shortly after the COVID-19 pandemic reached Aotearoa New Zealand, stringent lockdown measures lasting 7 weeks were introduced to manage community spread of the virus. This paper reports the findings of a qualitative study examining how lockdown measures impacted upon the lives of nurses, midwives and personal care assistants caring for community-based patients during this time. The study involved nationwide surveys and in-depth interviews with 15 registered nurses employed in community settings, two community midwives and five personal care assistants. During the lockdown, nurses, midwives and personal care assistants working in the community showed considerable courage in answering their 'call to duty' by taking on heightened care responsibilities and going 'the extra mile' to help others. They faced significant risks to personal and professional relationships when they were required to take on additional and complex responsibilities for community-based patients. Despite the hypervigilant monitoring of their personal protective equipment (PPE), the need to safeguard family and community members generated considerable stress and anxiety. Many also faced personal isolation and loneliness as a result of lockdown restrictions. Moreover, the negative impacts of experiences during lockdown often continued to be felt once restrictions had been lifted, inflecting life during periods in which community transmission of COVID-19 was not occurring. This article makes five core service delivery and policy recommendations for supporting community-based nurses, midwives and personal care assistants in respiratory disease pandemics: acknowledging the crucial role played by community-based carers and the associated stress and anxiety they endured by championing respect and compassion; demystifying the 'heroism' or 'self-sacrifice' projected onto care workers; the timely provision of adequate protective equipment; improving remuneration, with adequate provision for time off; and regular counselling, peer support groups and education on work-life balance delivered by support workers in recognition of stressors arising from these complex and isolated working conditions.
This report presents key findings from a 6-month ethnographic study on the impact of the Covid-19... more This report presents key findings from a 6-month ethnographic study on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on disadvantaged households and communities across the UK conducted by anthropologists from the London School of Economics, and associates. This research involved in-depth interviews and multiple surveys with people across communities in the UK, with particular focus on a number of case studies of intersecting disadvantage. Crucially, our research has found that Government policy can improve adherence to restrictions and reduce the negative impacts of the pandemic on disadvantaged communities by placing central importance on communities, social networks and households to the economy and social life. This would be the most effective way to increase public trust and adherence to Covid-19 measures, because it would recognise the suffering that communities have experienced and would build policy on the basis of what is most important to people - the thriving of their families and c...
Dealing with death and bereavement in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic will present significa... more Dealing with death and bereavement in the context of the Covid-19 Pandemic will present significant challenges for at least the next three months. The current situation does not allow for families andbcommunities to be involved in the process of death in ways in which they would normally hope or expect to be. In addition, mortality rates will disproportionately affect vulnerable households. The government has identified the following communities as being at increased risk: single parent households; multi-generational Black and Minority Ethnic groups; men without degrees in lone households and/or in precarious work; small family business owners in their 50s; and elderlyhouseholds. Our study focused on these groups. This report presents a summary of findings and key recommendations by a team of anthropologists from the London School of Economics who conducted a public survey and 58 cross-community interviews between 3 and 9 April 2020. It explores ways to prepare these communities and...
Background Mobile phone-based interventions have been demonstrated in different settings to overc... more Background Mobile phone-based interventions have been demonstrated in different settings to overcome barriers to accessing critical psychosocial support. In this study, we aimed to assess the acceptability and feasibility of a phone-based, peer-to-peer support group intervention for adolescent pregnant women aged 15–24 years living with HIV in Zambia. Methods Sixty-one consenting participants were recruited from Antenatal Clinics of two large urban communities in Lusaka. They were invited to participate in the mobile phone-based intervention that allowed them to anonymously communicate in a small group led by a facilitator for 4 months. A mixed methods approach was used to assess acceptability and feasibility, including a focus group discussion, pre- and post-intervention interview and analysis of the content of the text message data generated. Results Participants reported finding the platform “not hard to use” and enjoyed the anonymity of the groups. Seventy-one percent of partici...
Khuluma is a psychosocial and peer-to-peer mHealth intervention that uses text messaging to facil... more Khuluma is a psychosocial and peer-to-peer mHealth intervention that uses text messaging to facilitate support groups for adolescents living with HIV (ALWH) with the aim of contributing toward positive health outcomes. Although use of mobile technology in the form of mHealth interventions has proliferated recently in the field of health, published literature describing methods and processes of its application are limited. We present a set of methods and processes utilised to develop and pilot the Khuluma mHealth intervention amongst young people (15–20 years) in South Africa. We recruited and enrolled 52 adolescents (15–20-year olds) from four clinics in Pretoria and Cape Town to participate in a 6-month pilot of Khuluma. Participants were ALWH, aware of their status, on antiretroviral therapy for more than 12 months, and not suffering from severe depression. We conducted four pre and post intervention focus group discussions (FGDs) with a proportion of ALWH (n = 36) enrolled in the...
Dealing with excess death in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the question of a ‘g... more Dealing with excess death in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic has thrown the question of a ‘good or bad death’ into sharp relief as countries across the globe have grappled with multiple peaks of cases and mortality; and communities mourn those lost. In the UK, these challenges have included the fact that mortality has adversely affected minority communities. Corpse disposal and social distancing guidelines do not allow a process of mourning in which families and communities can be involved in the dying process. This study aimed to examine the main concerns of faith and non-faith communities across the UK in relation to death in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The research team used rapid ethnographic methods to examine the adaptations to the dying process prior to hospital admission, during admission, during the disposal and release of the body, during funerals and mourning. The study revealed that communities were experiencing collective loss, were making necessary adapt...
Sites: a journal of social anthropology and cultural studies, 2021
COVID-19 stories, especially from Aotearoa New Zealand as one of the leading nations ‘winning’ ov... more COVID-19 stories, especially from Aotearoa New Zealand as one of the leading nations ‘winning’ over the virus will be important historical documentation. The ‘team of 5 million’ is writing its narratives of life with/out COVID-19 – stories of ‘living in bubbles’, of ‘being kind’ and ‘being in it together.’ These are narratives of success which need to be examined alongside the narratives that have been absent from public national discourse but complicate understandings of ‘winning.’ To that end, in this article we map out (alter)narratives from supermarket and healthcare workers and highlight their stories of living and caring under lockdown. We posit that we need to pay attention to (alter)narratives of winning over COVID-19 in order to pay attention to the bodies and spaces that are often invisible but make winning possible. Thus, we see (Alter)narratives not as counter or anti to the nation’s winning narrative, but rather essential and adjacent.
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Papers by Nikita Simpson