In Africa, sickle cell disease contributes substantially to mortality in children younger than 5 years and in Uganda alone the public health burden is great (Ndeezi 2016, Green 2015, Serjeant 2003). The W.H.O. strategy for sickle cell disease (SCD) in the African Region is comprehensive. The guiding principles include country ownership of the strategy, partnership and team building, evidence-based interventions, and cultural sensitivity.
My new funded project will center women at the development and implementation stage of mDex-a diagnostic tool for SCD. At one end is a Ugandan women-led team interfacing with Western forces and funders as they develop a patent for mDex. I plan to investigate how technology is gendered, how they (as African women) are considered as innovators, and how their performance through technology can be placed in broader configurations of simultaneous inclusion and exclusion.
At the other end, are the women who stand to benefit (at least in theory) from the diagnosis itself. How will they (through consent and assistance), in conjunction with medical personnel, contribute to knowledge production for SCD in Uganda? Longitudinally, I am interested in the ways that empowerment take shape and how this empowerment that turns citizens (primarily mothers) into laboratorians might impact community building and local policy making? Will mDex become a state project? Drawing from the theoretical fields of the anthropology of technoscience, feminist technoscience, and postcolonial technoscience, I aim to situate social, geographical, and political debates about neglect, innovation, and empowerment.