Cambridge-Africa at Kings: Social and Spiritual Life of Electricity in Tanzania’s Mission Hospitals
The seminar is on the Social and Spiritual Life of Electricity in Tanzania’s Mission Hospitals and will be presented by both Dr Michael Degani, Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge and his research collaborator Professor Vendelin Simon, University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The talk will be followed by drinks so we can network and have further discussions. Please find a notice attached and some further information below:
Abstract:
Electricity is a fundamental prerequisite to safe, effective, and healthcare services in rural African settings, yet it is often expensive, unreliable and unevenly distributed. Based on two months of ethnographic fieldwork conducted across five regions in Tanzania, we describe in this talk how Catholic mission hospitals mobilize institutional agency to navigate the precarious energy landscape. We show how they draw on their various networks of donors as well as the sedimentations of existing missionary infrastructure to create a patchwork of energy sources that include state connections, diesel generators, insertion into church powered mini-grids, and independent solar. We then show how this patchwork affects the rhythms, textures, and spatial patterns of work and care amongst nurses, patients, kin, doctors, administrators, and technicians. In drawing on these multiple sources, these institutions exemplify an important strategy for operating in resource-poor environments and embed electricity in an ethic of care.
The seminar will be online also:
https://cam-ac-uk.zoom.us/j/83738842359?pwd=aqn1Fr7lMQSbHn81pY3JthfpuTKlbZ.1
Meeting ID: 837 3884 2359
Passcode: 918653
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