Call for papers – The African Anthropologist

The African Anthropologist (TAA) Journal 

Revisiting applied anthropology: Covid-19
 
The African Anthropologist journal is planning a special issue on the processes by which applied anthropology as a discipline currently addresses the health and health care challenges of the spreading of the Covid-19 pandemic in Africa.  
 
As exponential Covid-19 spread hits African countries, we continue to experience life losses, acute infection numbers, and novel control measures dictated by global and local health institutions, along with public health advisory reports, testing protocols, conflicting socio-political behavior, and diverse forms of economic burden. As social scientists, our goal is to join efforts to understand the impact of the outbreak, and the dynamics of this new reality. Applied anthropology has always engaged in critical explanatory and analytical studies on human life and offers valuable contributions that can sustain strategies invested on solutions to social problems.  
 
The objective of this special issue of the African Anthropologist journal is to consider the current theoretical constructions and empirical research that applied anthropology utilizes to publicly present paradigms, perspectives, systems of thought, resources and applications to reflect and actively act upon the social and cultural implications of the outbreak of Covid-19. How can committed, rigorous analysis and thinking contribute to critical interventions?    Topics and subject matter constituting the role(s) of applied anthropology in the contexts of the Covid19 pandemic include (but are not limited to) the following: 
 
• Global and local health policy 

• Political systems, communications, media 

• Inequalities and disparities  

• Comorbidities, coping with loss, grief 

• Rural and urban contexts   

• Perceptions, systems of belief, health care seeking behaviors  

• Health care systems, health workers 

• Education, teaching and learning systems  

• International and local trade, and economic systems  

• Community based programs, initiatives, and solidarity  

• Population, the elderly, women, gender studies 

• Discourses, expressions, movements, and transformations  

• Transnationalism, transnational medical care    

 

Authors should submit abstracts (500 words) by June 30, 2020. Notifications of acceptance of abstracts will follow. Manuscripts, including footnotes, must be between 4,000 and 5,000 words. For “Authors Guidelines” see https://www.ajol.info/index.php/aa/about/submissions. Accepted manuscripts must be submitted by September 30, 2020. For inquiries, abstracts and manuscript submissions please contact both guest editors in one email: Carolina Nvé Diaz San Francisco cmdiazsf@bu.edu and Paul Nchoji Nkwi nchoji@yahoo.com.