A Complicated Relationship to Truth
In 2009, New York Time’s Nicholas Kristof told the story of Long Pross, a young girl forced into prostitution whose tortured, abused, and mutilated body bore witness to the deep scars left by...
Privileged Suffering and the “Worthy” Victim
Yesterday 680 alleged supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood, as well as its top spiritual leader, were sentenced to death in Egypt for the killing of a single police officer during a riot last...
dissertating, diversions, and data.
I’ve been spending some time (read: all of my time) trying to synthesize my findings into something cohesive, comprehensible, and cogent. Hundreds of pages (months, and, admittedly, tears) later, I have a half-written...
Curse of the white camel
Lahiya’s story was difficult to follow, her narrative bounced between decades, husbands, and biomedical and supernatural understandings of the world. Frequently she would stop midsentence, eyeing my research assistant or pinching my biceps...
Locating the African Man
I sat with a father who held the hand of his adult daughter as she fitfully slept, jerking awake anytime the large growth, which had consumed her breast and migrated to her left...
In My Village
On particularly hot days, when the prospect of conducting another interview feels particularly onerous, languid afternoons often degenerate into play. Or should I say, something approximating play but probably closer to a theatre...
War on Risk
My hands still smell of bleach. My silk headscarf hangs off the chair, browned with blood. It was a hard day. The morning began innocuously enough (given the context). Women with pregnant bellies...
Six Beds. Sixty Minutes.
“Monday mornings are the worst,” the nurse tells me as we wade through pools of women at the chaotic Maternity Hospital. “Women wait at home all weekend, then come to the hospital after...
Waiting Patiently on the Threshold between Life and Death
I sit in the waiting room outside of the office of the director of the Maternité Issaka Gazoby – one of the largest centers for women’s gynecological and obstetrical problems in the country....
Poking, Prodding, Prying and the Failure to Saturate
I recently read an article about the experiences and expectations of women living with fistula in sub Saharan Africa. The study used a mixed-methods approach, marrying closed-answer questionnaires with in-depth qualitative interviews. While...
A Patchwork of Facts and the Thread of Supposition
In “Where Young Women Find Healing and Hope”, New York Times op-ed columnist Nick Kristof presents the story of a relatively new (and largely foreign donor supported) fistula hospital and of one of...
Bedside Manner and the Invisible Patient
In Niger, among individuals that value propriety, decorum, and ‘respectful avoidance’, discussions about bodies (even when they are working as they ought to be) are brief, circumspect, and sometimes conspicuously absent. Bodies, particularly...