Date & Time
Oct 05 2018
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Department
Center for Health and Wellbeing
Speaker(s)
Cal Biruk, Anthropology and Gender, Sexuality and Feminist Studies, Oberlin College
Audience
Open to the Public
Cal Biruk is Professor of Anthropology at Oberlin College and Conservatory. Their research focuses how data reflect and cohere new social relations, persons, forms of expertise, and exclusions in sub-Saharan Africa. Their forthcoming book (Duke University Press 2018), Cooking Data: Culture and Politics in an African Research World, draws on ethnographic fieldwork in Malawi with demographic projects in sites ranging from questionnaire design meetings, training for data collectors, fieldworker-led data collection in the field, and policy venues to critically examine the criteria and metrics that give numbers legitimacy in the era of global health.