Para-States and Medical Science

"Para-States and Medical Science brings together an impressive group of anthropologists, historians, and STS scholars to provide a fine-grained assessment of crucial transformations in African health care and in the relationship between states, publics, knowledge production, and private interests. It is a welcome corrective to any bland caricature of 'neoliberalism' that fails to take account of the state in satisfactory ways. This collection marks a turning point." - Julie Livingston, author of Improvising Medicine: An African Oncology Ward in an Emerging Cancer Epidemic

"This outstanding book introduces and interrogates an innovative concept, the 'para-state', while also presenting rich, textured, stimulating work in original ethnography set in Africa.  Its publication will be welcomed by a wide range of Africanists, historians and anthropologists of medicine and science, and those interested in development and postcolonialism in the Global South."
- Nancy Rose Hunt, author of A Colonial Lexicon: Of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo

“Para-States and Medical Science is an exceptional and engaging book that will be of interest to anthropologists, Africanists and historians as well as those interested in science and technology, post-colonial and development studies.” - Mary-Anne Decatur, Anthropology Book Forum

"Individual chapters focus specifically on processes of medical research, not health care delivery, but in so doing provide an often overlooked perspective on the types of medical work undertaken in Africa.... Summing up: Recommended." - M. M. Heaton, Choice

"Headed by a conceptually rich and well-argued introduction, the collection contains eleven strong contributions, all of which present original empirical case studies on diverse topics of public health intervention and research in African countries, ranging from history to social anthropology.... This collection offers a fresh interpretation of the paradigm of bio-governmentality, the discussion on the nation state in neo-liberal condition, and the project of development in the context of globalisation of African societies." - Astrid Bochow, Allegra Lab

"This volume is a crucial read for those interested in medical anthropology, science and technology studies, HIV/AIDS research and treatment, malaria, public health, development, and policy making and will be useful for graduate courses on these topics as well as those focused on Africa, globalization, neoliberalism, and the nationstate.... Geissler created a provocative account of medical science and health care, which not only contributes to scholarly discussion, but also to public debates about foreign funded treatment programs and research, which benefit from clinical trials, and the development of new drugs and their side effects." - Cortney Hughes Rinker, Anthropos

"I highly recommend this volume for anyone interested in the social relations of biomedicine, and particularly biomedical research, in Africa. As an interdisciplinary anthropologist who works on this topic, I found the book’s provocation to pay attention to the persistence of the African state extremely useful—suddenly, I am seeing the state in places in my work that I had formerly overlooked. I also appreciated this volume’s empirical documentation of the numerous ways in which, despite persistent inequalities, African actors—states, institutions, and individuals—shape global health partnerships and the knowledge they produce." - Johanna Crane, Medical Anthropology Quarterly

"Para-States and Medical Science is an impressive volume and a welcome addition to work on critical global health in Africa. The collection provides a much needed re-reading of contemporary biopolitical regimes in Africa, which neither fit old models of biopower nor conform to neoliberal forms found elsewhere. ... this work makes an original and innovative contribution to scholarship on the shifting relations between state, public, private and corporate interests in health care in Africa, and makes inroads for anthropologists, historians and STS scholars to move beyond standard narratives of 'development' and 'neoliberalism' in African contexts." - Michelle Pentecost, New Genetics and Society

"Overall, thanks to the use of 'para-state' as an analytical concept, the collection adds to our knowledge of the evolution of the postcolonial state and its predicaments as well as the role played by nonstate actors." - Kalala Ngalamulume, Journal of the History of Medicine

"The volume should become mandatory reading for scholars and students interested in the new configurations and possibilities that emerge on the African continent in the context of medical globalization, and which demonstrate (once more) that rigid distinctions between the global, national and local, public and private, state and non-state have become untenable, if not useless." - Hansjörg Dilger, Africa